Stalking Horse
by Ramos
Summary: Vic's husband is killed just as they're about to divorce. Was it an accident? Walt's instincts say no, and when Gorski resurfaces, he's sure he's right. Rating is for language, and there may be a little shippyness going on.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

Author's note: As far as I'm concerned, Nora Lou's 'In the Wind' is far too perfect to even begin to attempt to answer the end of Season 2 in any way. So, we'll pretend Fales has been thwarted, even if temporarily, and this takes place after Henry is released from his murder charge related to Miller Beck.

~Longmire~

A choppy breeze flirted with the 'For Sale' sign, making it waver back and forth as if waving for attention for buyers of the house. It was nice, by Durant standards, but it held the abandoned air of a house that was no longer a home. Pots of chrysanthemums, caught somewhere between dried out and frosted to death, marched up the short flight of steps to the front porch, and the grass had grown just a hair too long between its last mowing and going dormant in the face of the oncoming winter. Not that I could blame it; hunkering down for the winter and letting the rest of the world go on without me was an appealing idea.

The problem with that plan involved an abandoned trailer full of cattle at a truck stop off I-25, the fact that this was my deputy's house, and my deputy, one Victoria Moretti, was nowhere in sight. Considering she'd been at work less than eight hours ago, it was a puzzlement.

I picked up my radio and keyed the mic. "Ruby."

"Go ahead, Walt."

"Where's Vic?"

There was a short pause. "At her place, the last I heard. She wasn't real happy about getting called in, but she said she'd be ready by the time you got there."

Vic and The Ferg had had the late shift, but we were all working longer hours with Branch still convalescing. He was home, walking wounded but healing up as fast as he could, mostly out of desperation. Branch's father had taken up hovering over his one and only son when he wasn't haranguing me about the shooting, but the Wyoming Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and every other government agency with an extra oar to stick in had pretty much told me to keep out of it. Which I did. Mostly. In the meantime, Branch was suffering an overabundance of paterfamilias and it was driving him out of his mind.

That still left me short-handed, and with a possible cattle rustling to investigate. Despite the old movies, rustling is a real and serious issue in cattle country, resulting in millions of dollars in losses each year. A full grown steer is worth a thousand dollars, even in bad times. Given a pair of wire cutters, a trailer, and an hour in an unwatched field, a thief can make off with fifteen to thirty thousand dollars in a night. The people of Wyoming have had a dim view of cattle rustling for over a hundred years, and we take it seriously. When the clerk over at the truck stop had called in an unattended trailer full of black Angus beef still on the hoof, Ruby informed me that I would be taking back-up with me and had been dialing Vic's phone before I could argue.

"Well, I'm at Vic's place, and the house is empty. As in, sale sign in the yard, the lights are off, and nobody's home."

There was a suspiciously long pause before Ruby's unflappable voice came over the radio. "Walt, if you're over on Sycamore Street, you're in the wrong place."

"She moved?" It was news to me.

"Yep. Vic's renting a trailer over at the mobile home park."

"When did that happen?"

The pause was longer this time, and I recognized it. Every woman I've ever known did it; my wife and Ruby would have glanced at the ceiling in a plea to the Almighty for patience. Vic would have been muttering 'dumb-ass' under her breath.

"Walt," Ruby said, voice overflowing with that prayed-for patience, "she's getting divorced."

I pondered that as I drove to the trailer park, spot checking the few mobile homes that had numbers on their corners against the one Ruby had rattled off to me. Like most of my county, I'd served enough warrants or been called out to enough domestic abuse cases to know roughly where to find the new casa di Moretti. The yards here varied as much as they did everywhere else; some were pristine, showcasing flowerbeds and bird feeders that indicated their occupants were retired folk with time on their hands. Some were clogged with bicycles and toys, what my old boss used to call 'tricycle engine factories.' A few held rusted hulks of cars that their owners probably swore they'd get around to fixing up one day.

The yard in front of a shabby little sixty-by-ten was devoid of any decoration save a rapidly pacing blonde in a brown jacket who shot me a look of pure venom but got in the truck without a word.

I grunted something close to 'morning' in her direction, and received a semi-feral growl in return. Having been married for as long as I was, I knew when to keep my lip buttoned. Ruby had told Vic the basics when she woke her up, and further conversation was apparently not necessary – she didn't say a word the entire trip.

The sun was fully up by the time we pulled up to the truck stop. Sure enough, there was a stock trailer parked at the far end of the truck stop parking lot, battered but serviceable, and it held a complement of dark furry critters whose breath steamed in the cool air and who didn't seem all that distressed for the change in their usual routine.

"I'll run the plate," Vic muttered, firing up the laptop and craning her neck to catch the numbers on the dusty tag. It was a Cumberland county plate, just one county over, and that eased the high alert I'd felt since we rolled up. I walked around the trailer, noting the cattle seemed unstressed. Combined with the fairly clean trailer and the fact that it had good tires led me to consider that this might not be a crime scene after all. That was bolstered when Vic joined me near the tailgate.

"Plates came back as belonging to TCO Enterprises, owned by one Tucker Owens. It's not reported stolen." Vic stared pensively at the cows, who stared back. They knew a predator when they saw one.

Her usual edgy energy seemed muted, somehow, and her bright blonde hair was showing their dark roots in the clear morning light. I tried to imagine her as the brunette she said she used to be, that day in my office, but it didn't seem right. The dark shadows under her eyes gave me a slight twinge – we were all feeling the longer hours these days but she was thinner than I remembered her being.

"Got a phone number?"

"Yeah, I tried it and got voicemail. Did the guy at the truck stop have any idea how long it's been here?"

"Can't be that long." I nodded to the trailer. "You can still see the floor."

Vic wandered over to the tailgate and peered down through the gaps. "Huh." A moment later she cursed. "Shit!"

"What is it?" I asked quickly, concerned.

"Shit," she repeated, holding out her right hand. Sure enough, she'd put her hand against the grating and had a generous line of Grade-A cow manure across her palm and up the sleeve of her duty jacket. "Got any napkins in your truck?"

Scrounging under the passenger's seat, I found a wad of paper towels that were mostly clean - clean enough for this job, anyway. She snatched them from my hand and began wiping the semi-solids off her sleeve in vigorous motions.

"Let it dry – it'll brush out," I told her, though I doubted the muck would be so cooperative. She shot me a look but transferred her efforts to skin rather than fabric.

"Yech. It's getting between my fingers," she groused.

"Beats having it between your toes," I told her.

"Is that the voice of experience?"

"Yep."

Her fingers were splayed wide as she cleaned them, and I couldn't help but notice her fingernails. Generally speaking, she kept them short and neat, but these were trimmed clear back to the quick, and showed signs of having been chewed ragged. If nothing else, a dose of cow shit will keep you from biting your nails.

After getting most of it off her hand, Vic unzipped her jacket and wiggled out of it, folding the soiled sleeve over and put it on the floorboards. Not that it mattered; I quit worrying about the cleanliness of my vehicle about two weeks after getting it - right around the time Bob Barnes tried to exhale his innards all over the back. When a professional drunk tells you he's gonna hurl, trust him to know what he's talking about.

The thought of offering her my coat crossed my mind, but I ignored it; she's a big girl, and it wasn't that cold any longer now the sun was up. Besides, I was already on thin ice with her, and a chivalrous gesture just might get me shot.

"So what – we call the cow cops, or just let them loose and hope they find their way home?"

"Stock detectives," I corrected, ignoring her snark. "I wanna talk to the store clerk first."

Any reply she might have made was lost in the rumble of a diesel engine as a large dually pulled up alongside the trailer. A king cab 4500 with an extended bed and the extra wide tires four across in the back, it made my patrol vehicle look like an underfed runt.

As it turned out, Mr. Tucker C. Owens had had set out for an auction this morning, pulling his heavy trailer with a standard F250. However, the transmission began slipping badly less than an hour from his home. He'd limped the rig into the nearest truck stop, unhitched the trailer, and left it behind while he ran home to get the monster beside us.

"I told that moron in the store I'd be back in an hour or so," Tucker swore, rubbing his hand over his balding forehead before tucking his hat back on as if he could keep his remaining hair from escaping. I checked his driver's license just as a matter of course, while Vic looked over his gigantic truck with a bewildered scowl.

"Maybe it was a different moron," she offered. "What kind of gas mileage does this monster truck get, anyway?"

"Dunno – never bothered to keep track," the man replied. "Long as it works hard and gets the job done, I don't care."

"Kinda early for working this hard, isn't it?"

"You never run cattle, have you, missy?"

I cringed at the 'missy' but Vic didn't react other than to sneer. "I had a hamster when I was eight, does that count?"

"Everything looks fine, Mr. Owens," I cut in, handing him back his paperwork before he could continue. "You just drive safe now, you hear?"

In short order I had Vic back in the Bullet and Mr. Owens began hitching his cattle trailer up to his monster. We turned around and headed back to Durant, calling Ruby to check in. That pretty much exhausted all the conversation in the cab and a thick silence set in, punctuated only by the sound of the highway beneath the tires.

"So," I said finally, deciding not to let a woman half my age and weight intimidate me. "How's the new place?"

She grimaced, that almost-smile that pulled her lips thin across her teeth. "It suck ass, Walt."

"You know, you need to file a change of address form…"

"Did that weeks ago," she interrupted bluntly. "All taken care of."

"Oh," I replied sagely, nodding, then shot a glance towards her. "Weeks ago?"

"You were a little busy then," she allowed, her voice quieter. "I didn't think you needed to know."

"You were busy, too," I told her. Her knowledge of big-city police politics had been invaluable when Henry was arrested, and she'd been working nearly eighty hour weeks since Branch had been shot. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She almost-smiled again, throwing one hand up in the air. "Henry had been arrested, you were a suspect, Branch nearly died… my problems were hardly important enough to get prime time coverage."

I kept quiet for a moment – it's one of my best tricks, and I use it often. "Still," I finally added. "You coulda told us."

"Not your business," she muttered curtly. "It's almost over with, anyways. No big deal."

I nodded, accepting both her statement and her clear desire to let it drop, and drove back into Durant.

The Bullet pulled up to the Busy Bee cafe of its own accord, without me having to steer it. The lot had a fair share of cars, but most folks around here don't linger when there's work to be done and there was plenty of room at the counter to sit. Even better, there was a familiar form leaning over a set of Dorothy's biscuits and gravy and the morning paper.

"Hey, Henry!" I greeted him, glad for at least one friendly face. "What're you doing in here?"

My oldest friend peered at me over black reading glasses and grinned. "The sign saying 'no Indians allowed' is missing, so I came in." He stood up and nodded at Vic. "Besides, sometimes I get tired of eating my own cooking."

Vic favored him with a genuine smile, but waved me towards the seat as she stepped back. "I'm gonna go wash. It might not bother you all, but where I come from we don't eat breakfast with cow shit on our hands."

That got a raised eyebrow from Henry, and I shook my head. "Close encounter with a stock trailer this morning," I explained. We both sat, and Dorothy brought over some coffee cups and a fresh pot. Ordering a plate and a half of biscuits and gravy – full order for me, half for Vic – took all of a minute and I sipped my coffee watching for the return of my deputy.

"Did you know Vic is getting divorced?" I asked Henry. The words were out before I even realized I was gonna ask him.

He did not put the paper down, but his dark eyes shot towards me for a moment. "No, I did not. But it makes me feel better."

"Why would that make you feel better?"

"Because she was at the Red Pony a few nights ago, drinking and dancing with what could best be described as 'abandon.' And she did not leave alone."

The cup in my hand had a tiny chip on the edge, and was given a thorough inspection. "That so?"

"It is so. And that was not the first time."

"Not the first time dancing, or the first time she left with somebody?"

"Drinking. Dancing. She has been there several times over the past few weeks."

"You didn't tell me?"

That earned me another look over those dark specs. "It is not your business, any more than it is mine. She is not your daughter, or my god-daughter."

Being told things weren't my business twice in less than an hour was enough to shut me up, especially when Vic arrived back at the counter around the same time as our breakfast. She dove into the coffee and the food with a spark of her usual exuberance, and I considered what was and was not my business while we ate.

Victoria Moretti was a grown woman, old enough to handle her affairs – in every sense of the word. Just because she worked for me, that didn't give me the right to put in my two cents worth or even know what went on outside of her duty hours. I'd had that out with Branch not so long ago, and that was when he was sleeping with my daughter – something that still stuck in my craw. Considering Vic was the same age as Branch, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

Vic was the same age as Branch, and Branch was older than Cady… I got lost in the arithmetic. When she'd started working for me, Vic was within spitting distance of thirty. I remember thinking she was a good five years older than my daughter, and that made her better than thirty now since Cady was twenty-six. Or was she twenty-seven? Not being able to instantly remember my own daughter's age made me feel bad until I tried to base it off my own age – I was only twenty-three when we had Cady – and damned if that didn't leave me staring straight at the big Five-Oh and wondering why the hell it mattered in the first place.

Henry finished his plate before long and passed me the paper, mentioning something he needed to get done before opening his bar later that day. I laid it down between me and Vic, but neither one of us gave it much attention. She mopped up one last bite then raised her hand and waved for Dorothy, who brought over the ticket, a couple of Styrofoam to-go cups, and a fresh pot of coffee to fill them up and send us on our way.

As we headed towards the truck, Vic reached in her pocket and fished out a few bills.

"Keep it," I told her. "I got you up early, Vic. The least I can do is buy you breakfast."

"Oh. Okay." It was either the coffee or the food, but her quick smile was brighter than the thin autumn sunshine and even brought out one of her dimples as she yanked at the door to the truck.

"Got a hole there," I informed her as a flash of white caught my eye. In cooler weather she usually she wore her uniform over a thermal long sleeve shirt, and the tan fabric showed a flaw along her side.

"Huh," she commented, fingering the hole. Or rather, two round holes, set parallel to each other on the seam. "One of those assholes at the dump musta got closer than I thought."

The world went still for a moment. "What?"

She gave me a look, still pulling at the hem of her shirt. "The other night? The reason my truck is in the shop?"

Her truck had received three holes in the radiator when she'd gone out on a call about teenagers shooting up the local dump – not the official county dump, but the unofficial, really-ought-to-be-cleaned-up-when-the-county-has-the-money illegal dump down one of the old rural gravel roads. The replacement parts were taking their sweet time to arrive, which was why I'd had to go get her in the first place this morning.

"You said those boys were out there shooting rats – not at you!"

"Yeah – and the glass bottles and cans and anything else they find. Though I gotta give them credit for not doing it during the summer – it smelled bad enough as it was."

The coffee went on the roof of the truck as I yanked at the cloth in her hands. They were small holes – my fingertip didn't fit through them – but it was too damned close to her liver and kidneys to keep my breakfast from turning into a lump in my belly. I'd read her report. She'd busted up a party of youngsters with more beer than sense, confiscated the weapons, arrested the two that were the most inebriated (one underage) and sent the rest home with their tails between their legs. Each one would eventually get their weapons back, but it would cost them a trip to my office, a fine and another scalding lecture from either Vic or myself when they came to get them.

"Why didn't you tell me they were shooting at my deputy!?"

"They weren't shooting at me, Walt. They were just being stupid."

"Were you wearing your vest?"

"No-o-o," she drawled.

"You should have. And you should have called for back-up."

"We don't have any back-up, not till Branch gets back. And I'm not wearing my vest!"

"If this were Philadelphia, you would have."

"This isn't Philly, and a couple of hillbilly rednecks shooting .22's is not the same as a carload of meth-head gangsta wanna-be's doing drive-by's! Jesus, Walt! Give me some credit!"

I glanced up at her sea-green eyes, snapping with irritation, and I fumed rather than answer her back. I considered making it a rule that anyone answering a call on the night shift had to wear body armor. Then I realized I wasn't sure if Ferg had a vest, or if mine even fit any more, or if the meager budget bestowed by the county would stretch to buying them. If Branch had been wearing his last month, he might have had some broken ribs, but he'd have been ambulatory rather than hospitalized.

Vic shifted, her anger melting as she looked up at me. "You realize you have your hand on my ass," she remarked casually.

When I glanced down, it only confirmed that my left thumb was looped over her hipbone and my fingers had spread across the back of her fanny to hold her still as I'd inspected the bullet hole. Her hip was warm and firm under my touch, and I let go before I could notice –or touch – anything else.

"Where is your vest?" I asked, repossessing my coffee, which had miraculously not spilled.

"It's in my truck. Which is in the shop."

"You get it, first chance you have. I want everyone to have the equipment they need. You get me?"

"Yes, Sir!" she glowered, getting in the truck. I guess the coffee and food were only good for ten minutes.

The Ferg was in when we got back to the station, filling out some paperwork and chatting with Ruby. The conversation stalled as Vic swept by, headed towards her desk. She pulled out drawers and slapped them shut, while Ferg resumed his tale of the car wreck he'd been working while we were keeping the cattle safe.

"David Munroe got fired from that gas crew up in Montana, so he decides to borrow his daddy's new truck and go into town to get some groceries and such. Only he was going too fast and rolled it on that curve out by Sweetwater Creek."

I held back a sigh. David Munroe getting fired wasn't a surprise; the surprise would be if his old man didn't tan his hide for wrecking his truck. Ferg kept talking, so I kept listening.

"We really need to do something about that road, Walt. Get the DOT to put up a Dead Man's curve sign or something."

"Nobody's died there yet, Ferg," I pointed out.

Vic looked up from her rummaging efforts. "Make it a Dumb Ass curve sign. It'd be more accurate. Hey, Ruby? Do you have a needle and thread or something to fix a hole in my shirt?"

"You sew?" Ferg asked, unwisely. Both women gave him a look but Ruby nodded and pulled open a drawer of her own. We didn't have a lot of spare uniforms in Vic's size, and if she could salvage this one, all the better.

"Don't think the WyDOT will go for that one, Vic."

"Okay, how about we name it 'Alexandre Dumas Curve.'" She flashed me a grin, and I couldn't help but return it. The Three Musketeers was one of the greatest contributions to literature since the written word, but Dumas was doomed to have his name mispronounced by the uncultured for the rest of time.

Ruby found a needle and a spool of white thread, and handed it over. We all pretended not to watch as Vic bit off a length and threaded it with the air of someone who knew what she was doing. I tried to imagine Vic as a twelve year old in the Girl Scouts, honing her cussing skills while sewing her badges on a sash, but it didn't quite fit.

Her cell phone rang just as she was shaking the uniform down off her long arms, leaving her in a white thermal tee. When I was a kid we called them long johns, but the newer styles were form fitting and hers did its job well. The needle, spool of thread, and holey uniform landed on her desk in a haphazard pile while she dealt with the phone, and I turned my attention to Ruby and her list of Post-It notes. She rattled through them quickly; it was a relatively quiet day so far in Absaroka County, and that was just fine as far as I was concerned.

Ferg was still talking about David Munroe and his dispute with the tow truck driver's cavalier handling of his father's 'borrowed' truck, but Vic's words and tone caught my attention.

"Could you repeat that please?"

Something about the set of her shoulders, the curve of her spine as she turned away from the rest of the room set off alarm bells. I held up a hand to stall Ferg. Both he and Ruby grew silent while Vic's murmured words became louder, until she reached her boiling point.

"So, what – you need me to come up and identify the body?"

The palm of one hand was pressed against her hairline, something she only does when she's on edge. She nodded several times, muttering 'yeah' in response to the voice on the other end of the call.

"It'll take me better than two hours to get there," she warned whoever it was. "Oh, and by the way? Your notification skills suck ass."

From the corner of my eye I could see Ferg and Ruby exchange concerned glances, but I kept my attention on the tense woman standing on the other side of the desks. Vic punched at the buttons and fumbled the phone towards her pocket, but it missed and went clattering across the floor instead. Rather than picking it up, she rubbed her face with her hands.

If she were surprised to see us watching her, she didn't show it. She just looked past my shoulder to the far wall.

"Walt, I need to take off for a while. Ferg, can I borrow your car?"

The other two looked at me, reminding me I was nominally in charge here. "What's going on, Vic?'

"I, um…I have to go up to Billings and ID a body."

Consternation and frowns were exchanged, but Ferg was the only one either brave or foolish enough to ask. "Who's dead?"

Vic's breath hitched, ever so slightly. "My husband."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 2~

For more than a hundred miles, the rhythm of the highway was the only sound in my truck. Vic stared out the side window, watching the scenery whip by without her usual commentary on the lack of variety, or fiddling with the radio to bring in different bands of static. It was hardly surprising that I was having trouble mustering anything to say; my own experience with the death of a spouse didn't really seem relevant. Her marriage to Sean might have been in its death throes but it was still a marriage. I could only hope that Vic would weather the storm ahead better than I had.

She cleared her throat and sat up once we got into Montana, and when the road signs got serious about advertising how many miles were left until we reached Billings, she finally spoke to me.

"You didn't have to come," she muttered, as if I were accompanying her to grab a pizza.

"I know that."

"I could have driven myself."

Whatever doubts I had about that, I decided to keep to myself. "If you had a vehicle. Which you don't."

"I could have borrowed Ferg's car. Or gotten Branch's from his place."

That didn't deserve an answer either – Branch treats that Charger like his own offspring and keeps it locked up in his garage. It wouldn't surprise me if he talked to it. And Ferg was still on duty. As if she read my mind, Vic's eyes widened.

"Oh, God. We left Ferg all by himself."

"Ferg's a big boy. He can handle things by himself."

Vic rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth lifted. For all he was young and earnest and green as grass some days, Ferg was coming right along as a deputy. Whether or not anything happened in the next few hours, leaving him to man the station solo was both a test of his abilities and a testament to my faith in him. It might even occur to him to look at it that way, and I always thought a little confidence looked good on a man.

St. Vincent's is a big city hospital, compared to the one in Durant. It was rebuilt, just a few years back, and it was actually of a complex of big, square-edged buildings. The parking was in the South Forty, so we parked and hiked in. I took off my gunbelt and locked it in the Bullet along with hers – we were out of our jurisdiction and some hospital folks can get touchy about weapons being carried around all those sick people. Besides, Vic's uniform still lay on her desk with a needle and thread through the holes, and she didn't exactly look official in that old flannel shirt she'd grabbed on her way out the door.

She'd called whoever it was who'd said they'd meet her at the hospital, and eventually we found the right hallway and the right elevator to take us to the morgue. One glance in her direction told me Vic had dropped into professional mode and her face was all but expressionless as a man in a suit came down the hallway with a handful of paperwork and an impatient attitude.

"You're Victoria Moretti? Here about Sean Glenn?"

"Yeah," she replied. "You the douchebag who called to tell me my husband was dead?"

The Attitude was pulled up by the short hairs. "Yes. Officer David Lahaye, I'm with the Montana Highway Patrol. If you'll wait here a moment, I'll go see that a viewing is set up."

Despite what you see on television, usually body identification is done through a camera and monitor setup. It makes things a little less immediate to whomever needs to do the identifying, and has the benefit of not bludgeoning the viewer with the smells that go along with dead bodies.

"I don't need a viewing. Just take me to him."

Frowning, the Attitude went off to set things up, obviously not sure exactly where Sean's body was and not wanting to play 'guess which gurney' in front of the widow. Rather than follow that train of thought, I gave Vic a long look and decided she needed distracting as much as I did.

"Glenn?" I said, making it a question.

She shrugged. "I never took his last name. Yet another thing we used to fight about."

"You were already 'Officer Morretti' when you married him," I agreed.

"Yeah. Besides, Victoria Glenn sounds like a housing development."

Neither of us laughed, but a small oasis of ease grew as we shared the joke. It disappeared quickly as the Attitude, er, Officer Lahaye, reappeared and beckoned to Vic.

She quickly shook her head as I stepped forward, so I dropped back to wait next to the M.H.P. officer as she walked to those white double doors. We both stood and let her go by herself to take one last look at her husband. The filmy, scratched window in the door allowed me a view as she walked to the stainless steel table and its terrible cargo.

Sean's face was bruised, but still recognizable as the man who had ranted at me for taking too much of his wife's time and smiled with the glib assumption that she would always be happy to drop everything when he came back into town from his frequent trips. Vic's hand reached out to touch him, either his hair or his face, but I had to turn away as my own memories from two years ago suddenly overwhelmed me. Martha's hair, gone to a fine gossamer from the chemo but still the brilliant auburn color she gave our daughter, had been silky and nearly translucent between my rough, clumsy fingers in her last moments. Her smile had gotten thinner but was still warm and loving as she made me promise to keep her murder from Cady. And then, quietly, between one breath and the next, she'd slipped away.

"She always this cold?" asked the man beside me, and it took a moment to bring my focus back to the present.

"Everybody handles grief differently," I told him, my voice rough. "And this isn't her first rodeo."

He made an interested huff. "You saying she gets a lot of dead husbands?"

Officer Attitude leaned back when I glared at him. "Lot of dead bodies," I clarified. When he still looked confused, I decided it was a good thing that he was here in Montana and Ferg was in Durant, because I surely wouldn't want it the other way around. "Deputy Morretti worked Homicide in Philadelphia for five years, and she's been working for me for more'n two years."

"You?" He finally looked me over, taking in the hat and the boots and more importantly, the star on my coat.

"Sheriff Walt Longmire, Absaroka County."

"Sheriff's deputy… okay. She's not new to this."

"Like I said – five years in homicide. She's a pro."

An hour later we were still standing around a utilitarian table in a small conference room. Vic had been unwilling or unable to sit still, and I was raised to stand when a lady stood up. The highway patrol officer, who was getting on my nerves almost as bad as Vic's, sat at the table, unmotivated by either manners or peer pressure. Lahaye had transitioned from attitude to smooth talker, evidently taking Vic's professionalism to mean that she was not only over her husband's death but ready to be consoled by a fellow officer of the law in a spiffy suit.

Vic fidgeted as we listened and asked questions, and Lahaye filled out his paperwork and gave us the details on Sean's death. A highway patrol officer had spotted the taillights off the embankment at a place known for having black ice conditions in the weather they'd had the night before. The initial reports suggested that he'd died from internal injuries after rolling his company car, which was only slightly better than dying from exposure on a raw Montana night at the bottom of a ditch somewhere.

"Have you notified his parents?" It wasn't a question I would have asked, but knowing her relationship with Sean didn't give much hope that she had any better with her in-laws.

Lahaye had not; he'd only gotten her number when the car's plates had been run and they'd come up as belonging to Newett Energy and Exploration. The company's answering service had found Sean's emergency contact information in their files and given Vic's information from that. Lahaye had also confirmed the company car policy; Sean was assigned an official company car but left it in Billings when he flew out on his frequent trips.

"The folks at Newett had your husband's supervisor call me earlier today; Mr. Vaughn confirmed that Sean Glenn flew into Billings yesterday around noon. He was supposed to have a few days' vacation, and apparently had made plans. You're saying you hadn't had any phone calls from him?"

"No," Vic bit out.

"Were you expecting to hear from him?" I asked her.

She shook her head, once, and I directed my next question at the officer who'd probably washed out of law school and ended up working law enforcement but considered it beneath him. "Where did you say you found the car?"

"Umm… Highway 90, south of Laurel."

"Laurel?" I repeated, though I had heard it well enough.

"Yes, just a couple of miles south. This is all the personal stuff we found in the vehicle," he said, tapping a large plastic tub on the table. In it was an overnight bag that even I recognized, having seen Sean carrying it during his frequent comings and goings.

"We're checking to see if alcohol was involved in the accident, but nothing was immediately apparent," Lahaye added, taking the overnight bag out of the corrugated plastic box and putting it on the none-too-clean table. Other things followed; a wallet in an evidence bag, another evidence bag with change and assorted bits a man might keep in his pocket. "Did your husband have any reason to be upset? His job going okay?"

Vic gave him a predator's smile that would have caused a stampede earlier this morning. "Other than the divorce, things were fine."

"I see," Officer Attitude replied. "Well, maybe he was trying to get back in your good graces, _Victoria_." Her drawled her name suggestively, and pulled out the last item – a distinctive pink striped bag from a well-known lingerie chain.

Vic's face went yellow in places. I've seen her shut down hard before, and the planes of her face turn almost jaundiced with the lack of blood. I also know for a fact that she hated anything that came from the store that shared her name – she'd nearly decked Branch once when he'd teased her about it.

She snatched at the bag and pulled out a confection of purple satin and lace. "I doubt it," she told him, tossing the bag back on the table and turning away so fast her hip hit the corner and sent it skidding a good several inches across the tile floor. The door slammed as she left the room.

"You must be a leg man," I told the smarmy son of a bitch as I leaned forward and tucked the brilliant purple item back into its bag.

He was still staring after the abruptly departed blonde. "Huh?"

"You're sure as hell not much of a detective. If you weren't so busy staring at my deputy's ass you might have noticed she's not a 40 double D."

I followed Vic's exit, and found her not far down the hallway, glaring at a coffee machine that was reluctantly dispensing a cup of watery brown liquid.

"Laurel's west of Billings, isn't it?" she asked, her face still flat and tense.

"Yep." To get to our part of Wyoming, you head east on I-90. "You said he didn't call you?"

Her eyes closed. "He wasn't heading home, Walt."

"You think he had a friend."

"No, I think he was taking up cross dressing." She sighed. "We were two weeks away from finalizing our divorce. Of course he had a girlfriend. Why would he bother to change his habits just because we were making it official?"

She walked away from me, and I contemplated the idea that Vic's long hours and Sean's frequent business travel might not have been the only contributing factors to their marriage breaking down. Martha had grumbled about how often my duties had made me late or got me up early, but she was always glad to see me and I never once thought of straying from her. Even after her death I still felt like I was cheating on her by just looking at Lizzie Ambrose.

By the time I'd ambled back to the room, the lurid bag was once more in the tub and Vic was asking about the car. She wanted to see the damage, and despite his protests Lahaye eventually conceded. He gave us the address of the tow lot, and gave a lot of instructions and time frames and things that had to happen before they would be able to release Sean Glenn's earthly remains.

Despite being after lunchtime, we skipped the drive through and went straight to the lot. We were told to look, not touch anything, but there wasn't much reason to do either. The vehicle had rolled at least once, and all the windows were broken. The light green paint job was apparently a nod towards green energy or the environment, but mostly it was a rumpled mess. Fortunately there were no bloodstains or other indications of someone dying within the car. Vic didn't need to see that.

"Look," Vic said, pointing, and I hunkered down to get a better view. The rear bumper was hanging in plastic strips over the foam core, and it took me a moment to realize that the dirt on the corner was actually paint – a dark blue paint.

"I see it. Maybe he had a fender bender."

"No," she cut me off. "It's new. Newett is fanatical about their company cars. They have to be perfect, always. Sean and I got into a fight once because my handcuffs left a scratch in the hood."

She waved towards the front of the car, which was surely scratched up now. Vic's duty belt had the cuff case nestled in the small of her back, and when I tried to imagine how that would cause a scratch, it involved Vic lying flat on her back on the hood of the car. I decided my imagination had enough exercise for one day and returned my attention to the blue paint scuff.

"The Yellowstone River runs along the highway in places along that highway. Might have been some fog to go with that black ice."

She gnawed on her thumb, further deteriorating the bitten nails. "Maybe."

"You think another vehicle was involved?" It wasn't much of a question; the evidence was looking pretty persuasive and I'm sure the accident investigators would figure this out when they got around to it. The real question was whether another car was involved in, or outright caused, the accident.

I borrowed Vic's phone to call Lahaye and tell him what we'd found. He was disappointed to hear my voice on Vic's caller ID, but he promised to follow up. With nothing further to accomplish, I pointed the Bullet east and south back towards Absaroka County.

It was just getting dark when we pulled up in front of the shabby little trailer that was her new home. I turned off the engine and waited. Vic made no effort to get out of the truck, and we sat in the same silence that had filled the cab for the last few hours while she stared at the dark aluminum-clad box with less enthusiasm than a jail sentence.

There is no horror like facing an empty house after the death of your spouse. Sean might not have lived in this place – he may never even have visited. But this would still be one of the longest nights of Vic Moretti's life.

Maybe I couldn't change that, but I could delay it a bit. "Got any food in there?" I asked.

She startled, even though my voice had been low. "No – I don't know. I don't think so."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Let's find out."

The inside was as unimpressive as the outside, but it was mostly clean. A day bed stood against one wall in the living area, the covers pulled up if not strictly made. It faced a small entertainment stand with an older T.V. on it, and an abandoned cup half full of coffee stood on the counter that separated the living area from the kitchen. There were a couple of books and a lamp on a table next to the bed, along with a laptop that still sat open.

"Mind if I use your restroom?" I asked, startling her once again.

She pointed. The floors creaked under my weight as I followed the narrow hall to a bathroom that wasn't hard to find in a 600 square foot space. It too was barren, the shower stall draped with a towel and nothing to speak of around the sink. I dried my hands on the towel and went back out. The hallway had a wide spot that would accommodate a washer and dryer, had she owned a set, and the bedroom door at the end hung open. When I peered through the half-light inside I could see a disassembled bedframe, some more lamps and chairs, but mostly boxes stacked on top of boxes. Some were labeled 'Kitchen' or 'DVDs'. Some were labeled 'Sean's Shit.' The room apparently held pretty much the entire contents of the last two years of Vic's life with her husband.

When I returned to the living area, Vic stood in front of a refrigerator that was nearly as empty as the rest of her place. She closed the door and rubbed at her face.

"I need to call his parents," she told me. "You probably need to get back and relieve Ferg."

"Nah," I told her. "You go ahead and call. I'll run over to the Red Pony and get you some dinner."

She shook her head. "You don't have to do that," she tried to insist.

"Sure I do. I don't know how to make a casserole."

That earned me a limp smile, but she nodded and I trotted off to the Bullet.

Henry was happy to make me a set of meals to go, extra generous on the smoked brisket that would heat up well later, since we both knew Vic wasn't going to be eating much tonight. He told me to give Vic his condolences, and to let him know if she needed anything.

Back at Vic's mobile home I could hear her voice keeping up half a conversation, so I let myself in. Curled up on the corner of the daybed, I realized she'd changed into sweatpants and her Philly T-shirt, looking much as she had the night she'd spent at my cabin a few months ago. That tickled a thought in my head, but Vic was still talking on her cell, in what sounded like the middle of a very long conversation. I'd been gone for better than forty minutes, and she was using the same voice she employed when talking to drunks and fools.

"No, Catherine, there's no reason to think he was drinking. The roads were bad that night; they said it was an accident."

Actually, we hoped it was an accident. I took off my coat and set my hat, brim up, on the counter while I scrounged through her cabinets for plates and found nothing larger than a couple of smaller ones; dessert size, I think Martha used to call them. Fortunately she had a couple of cans of iced tea in the fridge and I pulled those out.

"When they release the body." A loud noise came from the cell phone in her hand. "I don't know. When they get done with the autopsy. Because. Because! They're gonna check for drugs in his system, for alcohol – no, nobody said he was drinking, but they have to be sure! I don't know, Catherine."

The books and lamp and laptop went on the floor, the spindly little side table survived the short trip to get planted in front of Vic. There was a footstool in the corner, and I grabbed that even though I knew it was short enough to make my knees stick up like Howdy Doody's. Vic made several more uh-huhs and uhms as her mother-in-law kept talking.

"Yes. No, I don't mind. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have wanted to be buried out here in BFE, either. It means Bum Fuck Eee- you asked!" She sighed, and eyed the Styrofoam trays I set on the little table in front of her. I swear, her eyes went feral as I opened my tray, revealing one of Henry's best hickory burgers and a load of fries that were still steaming hot.

"Yes, I'll have them ship his body back to you. Get the name of your funeral home to me, and I'll make the arrangements. No, you can make any arrangements you want for the funeral." Pause. "Of course I'll be– what, you don't want me there?" It sounded like backpedaling on the other end, and Vic nodded slowly. She glanced up at me and I wiped at the grease on my lower lip, fumbling for a napkin. "Yeah, I know. Me too. Catherine. Catherine! Look, I gotta go. Someone's at the door – they brought me a casserole."

She ate hungrily for the first few mouthfuls, but it was obvious that her system wasn't up to the demands of real food. I watched her pick at the brisket and decided Henry had made a wise choice. My stomach wasn't nearly sympathetic enough – it demanded the entire contents of my to-go box and made a few hints about Vic's leftover fries. I finished my tea and spent a little while tucking my greasy debris back into the bag where it originated.

"Doing alright, troop?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. You know, you can go on home. I appreciate…" She stumbled to a halt, then looked at me. Her eyes were that olive green, full of conflicting emotions that she probably couldn't decipher any better than I could. "Thank you. For everything."

I tried to reassure her with a smile, but it was hard. Words were never easy for me, and a situation like this is about as miserable as they come. "You need anything, you call me, alright?"

Vic nodded, but I knew she wouldn't. She'd gut her way through this, her nerves like rawhide, and never ask for a thing. If I thought giving her a hug would help, I would, but in my experience Vic's not the kind of woman who wants to be held.

I gathered my hat and put my coat back on, trying to think of another excuse not to leave. Ferg was going on ten hours now, and I had to get back to give him a break before he up and quit on me, too.

"Good night," I finally told her, and when she nodded again, I went out into the cold.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 3~

During the day, downtown Durant's rush hour is defined as a driver having to wait while a dog leisurely crosses the street. After nine on a weeknight, the town center is all but deserted. The streetlights around the square are the old, wrought-iron variety that cast limited pools of light on the pavement, and they led me back to the station with little islands of illumination in the dark.

At the top of the stairs, the wavy glass in the door beckoned with a diffuse glow. Inside, I found a single banker's lamp had been left on, and it highlighted the familiar khaki of my deputies' uniforms.

"You can go on home," I told Ferg as I hung my hat and coat on the rack.

"I just got here," protested a voice in a register deeper than the Ferg's. The man sitting there was taller, and his square jaw was merely truth in advertising to his stubborn nature. Branch Connelly looked like death warmed over, but he lounged in the hard wooden embrace of his chair like an insolent teen.

"What are you doing here?"

"Talked the doc into clearing me for light duty," Branch replied. "If I had to stay home one more day, we'd have had two more homicides to investigate."

"Two?"

"I got tired of my old man, so I called up Uncle Lucian."

My boots shifted on the old wooden floor as I considered. Barlow Connelly was a professional son of a bitch, but Lucian was a talented amateur and was not known for his generous and forgiving nature. What might have started as sibling rivalry had been distilled over the decades into a bitter elixir.

"Yeah, it was pretty entertaining for a while," Branch continued, his sardonic grin not quite at full strength. "My dad's got the volume, and Uncle Lucian's got stamina. Nastiest pissin' match you ever heard. I snuck out about four hours ago. It'll probably be awhile yet before they notice I'm gone."

"You doing all right?" I asked him. He may have been aiming for a casual pose, but I could still detect the guarded tension in his frame that bespoke a deep, lingering pain. He'd been shot twice, and nearly died.

"I'm fine," he replied, and I nodded once, taking him at his word. If he thought he was tough enough to take it, then I would let him. "How's Vic?"

"Her husband's dead," I told him. "It'll be awhile before she comes up swinging."

"You would know." His matter-of-fact tone held no animosity, and I nodded once more. "I sent Ferg home when I got in, told him I'd call if anything happened. It's been quiet, though."

"Alright. Let me know if we get anything exciting," I told him, turning to my office. At the door, though, I turned back. "Branch. Good to see you back on your feet."

"Good to still be alive," he told me.

Nothing further needed to be said; I went in my office and tried to catch up on some of the paperwork that seemed to grow like a fungus on my desk. Branch called it a night before too much longer, and I eventually found the last of the Post-Its from Ruby. After that, I dug out a catalog that listed the various ballistics vests available, with a discount to fine law enforcement agencies everywhere.

By midnight my desk was clear and I'd run out of things to waste time; I forwarded the answering system to my home phone and headed that way myself. Sleep was not as elusive as I expected, and if I dreamed, nothing stuck around to be remembered upon waking. A single car drove by my cabin as I got in the truck, and the morning was just getting started when I made it back to the station.

It should not have been a surprise to see Vic at her desk, but I paused when I saw her. The needle and spool of thread was back on Ruby's desk, and the waist of Vic's shirt nipped in just a hair tighter than usual, showing a slight but neat row of puckers near the side seam as she walked past me, shoving files into the old metal cabinet.

"Morning, Walt," she told me as she headed back to her desk.

Ruby handed me a cup of coffee. "She was here when I got in this morning," she whispered, casting a worried glance at our transplanted deputy.

Taking the cup, I approached Vic's desk. She was going through one of her notebooks, writing notes with vigor and dotting her I's and making the periods as though she wanted to be sure they were dead.

"Vic," I started in an undertone. "I expected you'd be staying home today."

"And do what, Walt?" Her eyes were clear and frank, but the thin skin below was darkened and dry as a desert.

"Well, you could do some laundry," I joked, waving my coffee cup in the direction of her duty jacket. "That ought to be dry by now."

"The washer and dryer are at the old place," she retorted, and I remembered the empty hallway in her trailer. "We're selling… um, it's included in the sale of the house. And I can't go over there and use it, because the utilities are all turned off."

I let the automatic correction roll past. It was yet another part of suddenly being single – having to change your thinking from the plural to the singular. Sometimes I still caught myself saying 'we' – I was married to Martha for twenty-five years, and it was a hard habit to break.

"Laundromat's just across the square," I reminded her. "You need to go – for whatever reason – you go on and go."

"Thanks," she told me, but turned her attention back to the papers on her desk. For a moment I considered asking her about Ed Gorski, the disgruntled ex-cop she'd once worked with back in Philadelphia, among other things. That day in my office, when she'd told me of Gorski stalking her, she hadn't really given me a full picture of how bad things had been. It was, however, the first time I'd ever seen her truly afraid.

As it was, there was no real evidence that Sean's accident was anything but that, and Vic didn't need me planting any ideas in her head with all the other things she had to deal with. A phone interrupted that thought, and I let her get back to work while I went in my office and pretended to be absorbed in the business of sheriffing.

Branch limped in a little while later, and I tried not to watch as he went to Vic and put one hand on her arm. They spoke quietly for several minutes, and whatever he said seemed heartfelt. As much as I disagree with the way Branch does things, he's a better man than a lot I've known.

The day wore on; Vic jumped on the first call out, having finagled Branch out of the keys to his vehicle. I took the next one, and by the time I got back Ferg was in and told me that Vic had gone home to deal with her, um, stuff. Ruby rolled her eyes at that, so I was fairly sure Vic's language had originally been more colorful. Branch was flagging and eventually hit Ferg up for a ride home; the Charger was still in Vic's possession and he was already regretting it.

The next morning, a Post-It note was stuck to my door frame, Ruby's neat handwriting telling me Vic had called in for her bereavement leave and would be back when the funeral was over. Branch groused a bit about being deprived of his car for a while until Ruby finally called the shop and got a promise to have Vic's truck finished by the next day. Seemed the parts had finally come in and the radiator was once more a self-contained unit.

Clark Rogers delivered the vehicle himself; usually his shop doesn't have that kind of service but word of Vic's loss had gotten around town, it seemed, and Clark was happy to drive her newly repaired truck up and park it in front of the station. He put the invoice and the keys on Ruby's desk, and was apologizing for taking so long. I signed the invoice and pulled the key ring off the paperclip. Attached to it was a small sandwich baggie, holding three twisted lumps of metal.

"What's this?"

"Oh, that!" Clark laughed. "I felt like one of those C.S.I. fellas on those cop shows my wife watches. Three bullets came out of that radiator. Not a record, of course – Omar's wife musta put a dozen in his truck the last time she left him."

I held up the baggie. Two were very small - .22 rounds, and probably came out of one of the confiscated rifles I had locked up in my office, awaiting the apologies and fines from their owners. The third was larger – much larger.

"Could this have been an older one?" I asked Clark, who was still chatting with Ruby about all the different cars he'd seen with bullet rounds in them, especially during hunting season. He peered at the larger clot of lead in my fingers.

"Nope. All three came out of the radiator housing. That one went all the way through and was stuck to the engine block."

Thanking the man, I gave Ruby the invoice to submit for payment and tucked the baggie of bullets into my desk drawer. My mind kept returning to it during the day, and somehow it wasn't a surprise when Ruby interrupted my afternoon with a phone call.

"Officer Lahaye," I greeted the man on the other end. "What can I do for you?"

He may have been a douchebag, as Vic called him, but he did actually know how to do his job. Sean's wreck was officially suspicious, and he was double-checking all the information Vic had given him several days ago. Ferg came in my office when I bellowed, and talked to the man, confirming that he'd dropped Vic off at her place after midnight on the night her husband had died.

"You checking her alibi?" I asked him when I repossessed the phone.

"Not exactly," Lahaye replied.

Maybe my comment about him not being much of a detective had stung, because Lahaye ended up telling me a lot more than he really should have. Sean's company jet had landed in Billings a full day and more before his death. Phone records showed he hadn't called his soon to be ex-wife, but had called the realtor listing their house. He'd also called a woman named Diane Proeker, who worked at a bar in Laurel. According to Lahaye, she was a busty brunette who would have looked spectacular in purple.

Sean's credit card statements showed he'd eaten dinner in Billings, spent the night at a chain hotel, and then bought two tickets to a movie theater and a shared his lunch with a brunette who matched Diane Proeker's description. His last day on earth had been rounded out with dinner and a few drinks charged at the same bar where Diane worked, and his last drink had been around ten p.m. His bloodwork had shown only a .02 BAC, which wasn't drunk by any state law, and his car had been found just after one a.m.

Layahe had interviewed Ms. Proeker, who admitted that she'd dated Sean for a while but hadn't been serious – at least not enough for her to give up any hours of her shift to go spend more time with him. Another woman who wouldn't drop everything when Sean called, it seemed. He'd mentioned something about finding a hotel room and calling her when he was checked in, but she never heard from him.

I faxed Lahaye Vic's report from that night, along with Ferg's report, stating that they'd both been on a call for a house break-in at around 10 p.m. on the night Sean died. Ferg added a statement that they'd both come back to the station to finish the paperwork, and he'd dropped Vic off at her trailer after midnight.

"If it weren't for that blue paint, I'd call this an accident and close it," Lahaye told me before he hung up. "But Ms. Moretti was right – that company he worked for was pretty strict about their fleet vehicles being in good shape. The paint scuff had to have happened that night."

I mulled it all over for the next few days. Vic didn't need an alibi, but she had a damned good one anyway. She didn't have anyone who could or would have done it for her, and Lahaye had told me that Sean had stopped putting his paycheck into their joint account more than two months ago. What money hadn't gone towards Vic's divorce lawyer had been spent on keeping their mortgage from getting too far in arrears. It was no wonder her fridge was a little thin on supplies.

Besides, if Vic ever wanted a man dead, she'd be more likely to run him down in the middle of the street and then stomping on or shooting – or both – whatever was left. She's not subtle.

By Friday, Branch was feeling restless enough to go get lunch for us all. Ferg wasn't due in until the afternoon, so just Ruby and I were there for a while, enjoying the quiet. Not too much later, I recognized the heavy tread of Branch's boots on the floorboards outside. He opened the door wider than strictly necessary for himself and the three paper bags he held tucked against his injured side.

"Look who I found," he announced as he stepped in, a big grin on his face. Behind him was Vic, looking completely out of place in a long wool coat the color of cranberries.

"Welcome back, Vic," Ruby told her warmly, and wrapped Vic in a big hug before she could fend her off. It was mercifully short, but still made Vic blush. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, Ruby. Thank you," she responded, her voice a subdued contrast to her coat. Something about her was different, but I couldn't quite figure out what.

"You look great," Branch told her, with that special emphasis that made more than one woman – like my daughter – weak in the knees. It earned him a genuine smile.

"You look - better. Hey, weren't you supposed to be home still? What are you doing here? In fact, what were you doing in the office last week?"

Branch shrugged. "Three Connelly men in one house was two too many," he told her wryly.

She shook her head, not getting the joke, but smiled again anyway.

"You did something to your hair," Ruby observed.

"Um, yeah," Vic admitted, running a hand through bright blonde hair that curled and waved, and it dawned on me that it was styled quite differently than usual. "Catherine - my mother-in-law - she took me to some spa place. Hair, nails… the works."

Sure enough, her nails were glossy and oval with white tips on them. Not a working woman's nails. "That was nice of her," I ventured.

"Not really. More like her dragging a stray to the groomers, trying to make it presentable before her friends showed up for the funeral."

"Well," Ruby temporized, "It must have been nice to see your family, at least."

"It was," Vic drawled, and I gave her look. She didn't elaborate, changing the subject. "So, any word from the Montana H.P.D.?"

"That investigator called here the day you left," Ruby told her. "I left the message on your desk, but he said he'd try your cell phone again." As if it had heard her, the phone on Ruby's desk rang. "Speaking of which, duty calls," she added, patting Vic on the arm as she headed for her desk.

Those manicured nails combed her hair back once again in a vain attempt to keep the shorter strands tucked behind her ears. "Yeah, he called my cell when I was in Philly. He's kinda sucked at returning my calls since then."

"Maybe Walt can give him a call, get 'em to cough up a progress report," Branch suggested, offering my services as he handed me one of the bags from the Bee. "Being sheriff is supposed to have some perks, right?" He had that glint in his eye, half teasing and half challenging, but he had a point.

"I'll see what I can do," I promised. "Right after lunch."

"Walt, that's the fire department on the phone. Got a house fire over at the mobile home park."

"Darn, that means I won't be able to get to my house," Vic joked. "Guess I'll have to run all those errands before I go home."

"I'll put your lunch in the fridge." Branch took the bag right back before I could even open it to check on the contents. He put his own on his desk and handed Ruby the salad she preferred. Suppressing a sigh, I reached for my coat and hat, pulling them on and accepting the little yellow square of sticky paper Ruby held out to me.

Across the room, I saw Vic lean over Branch's desk and steal one of his fries, laughing at whatever he'd threatened in return. I didn't hear it; all my attention was on the address in my hand.

"Vic," I called. She looked up at me, that brilliant smile of hers so close to normal that I'd rather have shot myself than say what I had to.

"Oh, my Lord!" Ruby breathed. She hadn't put it together when she'd first written out the address. She deals with so many details during the day, I could hardly fault her for not remembering.

"I think you need to come with me," I told my deputy. Her smile dimmed, changed to a puzzled frown.

That immaculate woman, with her shiny nails and fancy hair, who had been returning to her true self right in front of us all, stood up and looked between Ruby and myself with more than a hint of her inner strength. "What's going on?"

"Your new place is on fire," I told her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 4~

The horn on the Bullet is impressive, and it made the gawkers move smartly when I pulled into the Durant mobile home park. The fire was already out; the men in the long black and yellow coats that constituted Absaroka's volunteer fire department were moving with purpose but without urgency. The focus of all this activity, one shabby, inoffensive little trailer house, lay gutted like a tin can used for target practice. The roof sagged in the middle, still steaming from the heat. The aluminum wall panels gaped wide, and in places water dribbled from the shredded yellow insulation.

One of the firefighters noticed my arrival and headed my way; I left Vic staring at the wreck of her home and reached the sidewalk about the same time the Chief did.

"Afternoon, Walt," she greeted me with an emphatic handshake. Beverly Gidelski was nearly my age and could walk under my outstretched arm without knocking off her helmet. She also had more energy than any three men under her command, still competed in marathons all over the country and regularly ran her new recruits into the ground. Even on a good day, I got worn out just talking to her.

"Chief," I returned the greeting, tipping back my hat to survey the damage.

"Neighbor noticed the fire and called us out before it got too bad," Beverly stated. "It's a mess, but it could have been worse – doesn't look like anyone was home."

"Any idea what caused it?"

"Not yet. Might have left the stove on this morning, or something, but it started in the living area." She gestured towards the worst damage, in the middle where I'd once eaten a meal with my knees up near my kidneys.

"Doubt it – the occupant hasn't been home for nearly a week," I told her.

A flash of red caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Vic picking her way across the hoses and other equipment that littered the street. Her boots were high-heeled and far less practical than the hikers she usually wore, and she walked like she didn't quite trust them.

"Bev, this here is my deputy, Vic Moretti. She's been out of town for most of a week, but she's been living here for a bit."

Vic got another vigorous handshake. "Deputy Moretti. Heard about you. Sorry about your place. Anything idea why it might have caught fire?"

The pinched look was back on Vic's face as she surveyed the mess. "Everything was off when I left last week, and I just got back into town about an hour ago. I went straight to the office to check in."

I could see Beverly's brain churning as she tried to put together the deputy she knew by reputation with the woman standing before her, looking completely out of place with her stylish hair and expensive crimson coat that probably cost more than some of the cars the neighbors drove.

"So, nobody here while you were gone? No friends dropping over, no cat to check on?"

Vic shot a quick look my way, but shook her head. "No, nobody's really been here since I moved in, and no one should have been here while I was gone."

Something rattled inside the house and Beverly swore.

"Christ, Mitchell, get outta there. Wait 'til things cool down some more."

"Found something, Chief," replied a voice, and as I peered through the haze and the mess I could just see the yellow reflective tape on a fireman's jacket, along with the twisted jumble of metal that had once been a brass day bed. The floor creaked ominously, but whoever it was skipped lightly through the broken doorway and clattered down the rickety steps to fetch up in front of his boss. The young man's chest puffed up like a bird dog with a freshly retrieved dove, and he held out a gloved fist holding a broken bottle.

The neck and about a third of the bottle was still intact, and Beverly quickly pulled her own heavy gloves back on to take it. It was smeared with ash and black smoke traces, and graceful little figures marched up at an angle towards the bottle's shoulder. The fire had burnt the paint, but the logo was still recognizable.

"Grey Goose," she stated, then sniffed the end that wasn't sharp and pointy. "Smells like oranges. Probably flavored vodka - all the yuppies are drinking it these days."

"Nobody calls them yuppies anymore," Vic corrected absently.

"So - You drink this brand?" Beverly asked.

"No. I don't drink vodka."

Vic's sharp gaze never lifted from the bottle shard in the chief's hand, and I started to get a very bad feeling about all this. "Vic?"

Beverly had been Chief almost as long as I had been a sheriff, and she wasn't far behind me. "You piss anybody off lately? More than usual?"

Blonde hair swayed as Vic tried to shake her head, but I wasn't falling for it. "You know someone who drinks this brand, don't you."

"It's a popular brand, Walt."

"WHO?" I knew what she was gonna say, but I wanted her to hear it come out of her mouth. Every conclusion I'd deliberately not jumped on for the last week was right there in front of me, and I felt like a damned fool for not following up on this earlier.

"Ed Gorski," she whispered.

"Will you excuse us," I told Beverly, grabbing Vic by one elbow. I marched her back across the street, making no allowances for those asinine boots when they tripped her up. She let me know her opinion of my high-handedness when she wrenched her arm away hard enough to nearly break my thumb. It didn't matter; I had her penned in by the body of the truck and put my face down close enough to hers to be sure she heard every word I said.

"You said he left town!"

"I thought he did! He checked out of his motel – I haven't seen him in weeks. I thought maybe he decided to listen to your warning after someone beat the hell out of him." She was nearly as mad as I was, and normally I'd back off but I was past the point of caring.

"No phone calls?"

"No. Not a peep out of him since then."

"What did he say – EXACTLY – when you left him at the hospital?"

"He was already gone when I got there."

"Dammit, Vic!"

Her eyes slid sideways and she crossed her arms defensively. "He left the papers. The assault charge I tried to get him to file."

"Go on."

"They said… they said 'see you soon.'"

Ten minutes later I had simmered down to a steady burn and managed to keep from breaking any land speed records. The Bullet's door still made a satisfactory bang when I slammed it shut, as did the heavy lower door at the station when I shoved it open. It must have been audible from above, since three expectant faces looked up at me when I strode back through the office door.

"Branch," I called out, shoving my hat on the rack. "Call the Thunderbird Motel and see if there's a man named Ed Gorski checked in there. Then I want you to call every other motel in fifty miles, ask them the same thing. Ferg, you dig up the information on Gorski from that assault incident a few months back and get an APB out on him – right now."

Both men responded without arguing or asking questions that could wait. Ruby eyed me, waiting for her orders, but I turned to the woman who'd been pulled reluctantly in my wake. "Show me," I ordered.

Vic's jaw set but she went towards her desk, pulling out the lowest drawer and rummaging in the back of the cavernous old thing. The box she plopped on her desktop was not huge, only about four inches deep, the kind that blank file folders come in from an office supply store. Inside, the first thing visible was a large manila envelope that just filled the interior and lay unevenly over several lumpy other bits in there.

Inside that was a set of papers, a standard incident form. Vic's distinctively terse language outlined the basic facts of the night someone beat the hell out of Ed Gorski, only with Vic as the perpetrator. It was unsigned. Instead, large red letters proclaimed 'See You Soon' across the sheet.

A variety of items littered the bottom of the box, all in evidence bags, meticulously labeled with dates and the circumstances under which they'd been found. A large postcard had the words 'Go Eagles!' written in the same block letters as the message on the complaint papers. Another bag held a smaller white envelope and its card. It read 'Happy Anniversary.' I recognized it as the one Bob Barnes had lost when delivering flowers for Vic. She'd made what I thought at the time to be a bit more fuss than necessary about the lost card, but she'd been adamant and Bob had finally found it. More disturbing was a bar of soap with a chunk bitten out of it, and another baggie, this one from the Philadelphia P.D., which held a handful of 9-millimeter shell casings.

At the bottom of the box was a newspaper clipping, also in an evidence baggie. Vic's manicured fingertips seemed reluctant to touch it, so I pulled it out myself. The paper had gone slightly yellowed, and told a story about a police detective named Robert Donolato who had been found dead in his bathtub from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Donolato had been under investigation by the Philadelphia Police's Internal Affairs division at the time of his death. His body had been found by his long-time partner, Edward Gorski. Slashed across the pulpy clipping were a number of angry red words, in now-familiar handwriting. The mildest epithet was 'You're the guilty cunt!' and they went downhill from there.

It's about a dozen steps from Vic's desk to mine, when your legs are as long as mine are and you're as pissed off as I was. I came back with the little baggie of lead I'd dropped in my desk drawer last week.

"What's that?" she asked, reflexively grabbing the bag as I flipped it towards her.

"Clark Rogers pulled those out of your truck's radiator a few days ago," I told her, then gestured towards her side. "One of them probably put those holes in your shirt."

She held the baggie up, noticing the size difference. "One of these is bigger," she observed.

"Yep. I'd say about a nine mil."

She put the bag down but didn't say anything.

"Let me guess – Donolato killed himself with his police issue. Probably a nine mil."

Silence. I called out to Ruby. "Ruby, I need you to call Bev Gidelski over at the fire house and tell her that today's fire probably was arson and we'll be investigating a man named Ed Gorski in connection. We're putting out an APB on him for suspicion and questioning on that, and a possible connection to a vehicular manslaughter in Montana. He should be considered armed and dangerous."

Branch was frowning, and I could see the little wheels turning in his head. Ferg looked up at me, confusion on his face. Ever the genius of asking exactly the wrong – or right – question, he piped up. "You think he had something to do with that accident that killed Vic's husband?"

Though I didn't say anything, Branch has gotten good at reading me. "I guess that's a yes," he drawled. "Gorski's not at the Thunderbird, but he was there. Checked out about two weeks ago."

"Ferg, get that APB out. Branch, you keep calling. I'm gonna call the Montana H.P.D. and talk to their investigator, Lahaye, about Sean's accident. And you," I turned to Vic, noting the unhappy set of her shoulders and the tenseness in her hands. "I want you to write up everything you know about Gorski, understand? Everything."

"That could take a while," she replied.

"You're not going anywhere," I told her. "You've got time."

Back at my desk, I dialed the number on David Lahaye's business card. It went straight to his voicemail, and I had to haul my thoughts into some semblance of order in the few seconds it took to listen to his greeting. I left a message, hoping I sounded halfway professional, and hung up.

The woman must have been watching the lights on the phone because she was in my office, closing the door behind her, just a few moments later.

"Walter Longmire, what in the hell is wrong with you?!"

I gave Ruby look, expecting she was gonna tell me shortly. She did not disappoint.

"That young woman is sitting out there trying to write a report and hold herself together."

"Well, good," I began, but she cut me off.

"She has just lost her husband, and her home, in one week. And now her boss is treating her like rookie who screwed up, and she's not even on duty!"

Ruby didn't get angry with me often, but when she did, watch out. While I was technically her superior, neither one of us had any illusions about her position in this office. The woman has acted as den mother and chief hen of the coop since I first put on a uniform for Absaroka County, and when she felt someone deserved to have their ears boxed, she did not hesitate to roll up her sleeves. I could feel my ears getting red.

"Ruby, there's a good chance that Sean's death was no accident. If Ed Gorski is here in Durant, there's no telling what he's liable to do next. She could be in danger."

"I understand that," she told me stoutly, "and I'm sure you'll do a fine job of keeping her safe. But in the meantime, she is still dealing with her husband's death. And now to find out that he might have been murdered, I would think you – of all people – would have a little more understanding and patience with her!"

She left me to stew, deliberately NOT slamming the door to my office. I stared at it a while, knowing she was right and knowing I had handled this badly. Now if only I could figure out how to fix it, keep Vic safe, and find Ed Gorski all at the same time, not to mention solving Branch's shooting and every other damned thing going to hell around here.

My phone rang eventually, giving me something else besides to focus on besides the fact that the problems were piling up faster than the solutions, and there didn't seem to be any end in sight.

Lahaye listened and took notes while I told him what was happening. He said it was probably enough to pull financials and phone records on Gorski, and promised to keep me up to date. I'd heard it before, but he might have been serious this time. For my part, I made a note to have Ferg send the assault information and Gorski's before and after pictures to Lahaye's office so they could have an idea of what his current appearance might be.

No sooner had I hung up than I heard the outer door open up, and a man's voice announcing "Got a flower delivery for Victoria Moretti?"

Billie Barnes jumped about eight inches when I appeared in the doorway, and he swallowed uneasily when I pinned him with the hardest look in my repertoire. He was slacker son of a worthless father, and I still hadn't forgiven him for nearly killing my daughter in a hit-and-run accident earlier this year. Bob Barnes' one good attempt at being a decent father had been to take the blame for his son's sins, and maybe his father's sacrifice would make something of Billie, but I was not holding my breath.

"Sheriff," Billie greeted me nervously.

I took another hold on my temper. "What do you want?"

"Ummm… I got my dad's old job, delivering flowers… but the house at the address I was supposed to take them to, well, it burned down…" He looked at Vic, holding out the modest white box.

Vic looked more likely to jump out the window than come forward and claim them. I took the little white envelope off the box, opening it and ignoring Billie when he tried to protest.

"With deepest sympathy, your friend, Omar," I read. Branch's phone was the closest and I punched in a phone number before I even realized I had Omar's number memorized.

"This is Omar," answered the suave bastard, sounding inordinately pleased in my ear. "Something I can do for you, Vic?"

"Omar," I barked. "You send Vic some flowers?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I did. Why, you calling to warn me off? Jesus, Walt, what kind of man do you think I am? I'd at least wait until her husband's body was cold before I…"

I hung up before he could tell me what he'd do. "Yes, they're really from Omar," I told Vic. She relaxed, and after a moment Ruby took the box from Billie and handed it to Vic. Together they opened the box and revealed a simple arrangement of white flowers, bound by a black ribbon.

"Wow – this is actually… nice."

Ruby agreed. "Looks like Omar may be growing up. It's about time." She cast me a skeptical glance, then turned to Billie. "Thank you, Billie, they're lovely. Do you need me to sign for the delivery?"

He did, and that gave me a long moment to watch Vic. She was gently stroking the black ribbon, much as she had her husband's hair in the morgue in Billings. She glanced up and caught me watching, and I turned away before she could say anything that I probably deserved.

Instead I dug in my pocket and found a couple of bills, which I handed to Billie as a tip. "Everything going good for you, Billie?" I asked, with just a touch of steel in my voice. "How's your dad?"

"Yes, sir," he gulped in reply. "I got this job, and everything. Dad's gonna get the rest of his sentence suspended as soon as he completes that alcohol rehab program."

"Good. Good to hear." I clapped him on the shoulder as he left to let him know I wasn't planning on killing him any time soon. We both understood that option wasn't completely off the table, and it might keep him from being any more stupid than nature intended.

Speaking of being stupid. I approached Vic's desk, metaphorical hat in hand. "Look, Vic," I started.

"I'm almost done," she told me, dropping the flowers back in the box and turning towards her computer.

"Don't worry about it. I'm, uh…" I took a breath. "I'm sorry about jumping all over you on this. And if I haven't said it, I'm truly, deeply sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," she told me, her voice carefully even. Finally she looked up at me, and as usual the clear sea green of her eyes was distracting as hell. For a moment I wondered where that easy rapport we usually had between us had gone.

"I also want to know why you deliberately concealed a threat to one of my deputies." I tapped the other box that still lay on her desk. "'See you soon' doesn't sound like someone who's running away."

"That was weeks ago, and we've had a shitstorm of other stuff to deal with," Vic protested, sounding exhausted. "Henry got arrested, your wife's case, Branch got shot… and that's on top of all the other crap we usually deal with."

"Yeah, we've had a lot on our plates around here," I agreed, trying not smile as she echoed exactly what I'd been thinking just a bit ago.

"Well, we need bigger plates," she shot back. "Besides, this isn't your problem. I didn't want to drag the whole department into it."

"Vic," I told her, leaning closer so she'd be sure to hear me, "you are part of this department. A threat to you is something we're all gonna take serious. If Ed Gorski killed your husband, and that's looking like a serious possibility, you are not gonna handle this yourself, you understand?"

That stubborn jaw flexed, but she didn't argue. Something about this guy shook her bad, and I made a mental note to call Philadelphia in the very near future.

"You're staying at my cabin tonight, alright?"

"I can't put you out," she started to argue, but I knew her options were limited.

"Your old house has no utilities, and your new place is a bit drafty. Still got your luggage from your trip?"

"In the Charger," she admitted.

"I'll go get it," Branch volunteered, proving that he'd been eavesdropping. Unrepentant, he stood up and held out one hand expectantly. "Keys?"

"Are you supposed to be lifting stuff yet?" Vic asked.

"I'll be fine," he assured her, grinning. Vic rolled her eyes, but fished a set of keys from her coat pocket and plunked them into his outstretched palm.

And here are your keys back," Branch told her, giving her back the truck keys.

Vic watched him leave, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly. "Five bucks says he kisses that car."


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 5~

Driving back to my cabin with Vic that night was strange when I considered the differences, both subtle and profound, between last time and now. The first time Vic had stayed with me was just after she'd finally admitted the real reason she'd moved to Wyoming, and the first time I'd heard of Ed Gorski. With her husband out of town and a stalker leaving her love notes, I hadn't wanted her by herself in an empty house.

That particular evening had ended with Lizzie Ambrose showing up on my doorstep and inferring a hell of a lot more than the situation suggested. If a pillow and blankets on the sofa didn't indicate where Vic was planning on spending the night, then maybe that ratty oversized tee shirt and sweatpants might have given Lizzie a moment's pause. Not that Vic didn't look just fine in that, but a woman who'd once greeted me in a black corset and a smile should have maybe taken a moment to consider the evidence before making assumptions and accusations.

It's not far from the station to my place, but Vic had already dozed off before I was halfway home. Her hand lay on the seat between us, her capable fingers made unfamiliar by the manicure, and the gold band on her ring finger gleamed in the lights from the dash. Martha had been gone for six months before I could take off my wedding ring; I couldn't remember if Vic has been wearing hers during the weeks her divorce was in the works. It wasn't unusual for Vic to take her ring off and leave it in her desk for safety when she was working, but she might have put it back on for her mother-in-law's sake.

Once I pulled in to my cabin, Vic roused enough to navigate the stairs up to my front door, and I was glad Henry had bullied me into finally getting them built. She went to change her clothes while I started a fire and headed out back to the wood pile. By the time I came in with a second armload of logs she was curled up on the sofa and staring blankly at the cheerful little blaze that was beginning to take the chill out of the room.

I've seen her tired before, but she was worn to the bone and all but asleep sitting up. The same pillow and blankets from last time were easy to find, and she didn't fight me when I put the pillow at the far end.

"Lay down," I ordered gruffly, and she obeyed.

"Thanks, Walt," was all she said, and no sooner had I grabbed the blanket and shook it out she was blinking slowly, all but gone again. She didn't move when the blanket settled over her, and I resisted the urge to tuck it around her.

The cabin has all the amenities, but I usually just use the fireplace until deep winter and I have to worry about the water pipes. By the time the room was fully warmed up, Vic was deep asleep and I was wide awake. For better than an hour I just sat there in my chair, watching her and thinking.

Lizzie might have been right – maybe there was a part of myself I was saving for Vic. In over twenty years of law enforcement, I've never worked day in and day out with another person who could read me as easily as I read them; who did the job well but was always up to learning from me even as they showed me a thing or two. For the first time I understood the partnership bond that could exist between two lawmen – law persons?

But that bond between me and Vic had blurred some lines somewhere, and it caused no end of trouble with Vic's relationship with her husband and my relationship, however long it had lasted, with Lizzie. I had no idea how bad I'd lost track of those lines until that night in Arizona when Vic stole my beer and I found myself wondering things I had no business wondering about, especially concerning a married woman.

She wasn't married now, some part of my brain ventured, and I smacked it hard. The last thing Vic needed was me paying her the kind of attention I had no time or business to be paying. Inclination, maybe, but no time. No, the best thing I could do was to keep my distance, be her boss and her friend and hope we all came out the other side of this mess.

On the other hand, I'd done such a successful job of distancing myself from Vic since Arizona that I'd completely missed the clues that Vic and Sean's marriage was over but for the paperwork. She had obviously noticed my reluctance and silently complied with my wishes, going so far as to not even let me know about her divorce or Ed Gorski's vague threats. I certainly had no right to feel left out, but I brooded on it all the same.

Having come to no conclusions and managed to muddy things up in my mind even further, I put a couple more logs on the fire and went to bed.

When I got out of the shower in the morning, I found the blankets neatly folded and a note from Vic telling me that Beverly Gidelski had called her and let her know her trailer had been deemed safe enough for re-entry. Ferg was picking her up and the two of them were going to go, as she put it, 'dumpster diving' and see what she could salvage. I drove to work solo, and tried to tell myself I wasn't disappointed.

Once fortified with coffee, I dug into my personnel files and pulled Vic's paperwork. Her application and background check were there, along with letters of reference from her shift supervisor and others. For several minutes I perused her qualifications – a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, enough credits to get her halfway to a Masters, certifications, commendations, and other proof that Absaroka was damned fortunate to have her.

Underneath it all was a sheet with her personal information, including the duly filled out change of address information from several weeks ago. And then there was her own personal contact information, which left me in a quandary. I could call any one of a dozen people and spend all morning trying to find someone who could give me the truth behind Vic's departure from Philadelphia.

Or, I could call her father.

His cell phone was listed, but so was his office phone. A personal phone call could imply it was personal business, where an office number would not. With that important detail clear, and fully aware I was taking my own life into my hands, I called the office of the Chief Inspector Field Division North of the Philadelphia Police Department.

I got routed to several different people, and each time explained who I was and that I needed to talk to the chief Inspector about a former case. Eventually I had to tell them it was about his daughter, who happened to be my employee. Mostly, I got 'Absaroka? Where is that?' Finally a tight baritone voice came on the line and announced he was Victor Moretti, and what the hell happened now?

"Vic's fine," I assured him. "I'm actually calling to find out about Bobby Donolato."

The silence on the other end was striking, and then he started talking. And talking. And talking. I made a few attempts to get a word in, but he obviously needed to vent and I was the lucky man on the receiving end.

I learned more about Vic in that hour than in the past two years. It became very evident that Victor Moretti had labeled his one and only daughter as a defiant, unruly child from an early age and time had not altered his opinion. I looked at the glowing commendations in her file and wondered if we were even talking about the same Victoria Moretti.

Apparently Vic had not called her folks when Sean died – they'd found out from Catherine Glenn when she'd called them. Adding insult to injury, Vic had stayed with her in-laws rather than her parents, which sounded like something close to martyrdom from what I knew of her in-laws. Lastly, Vic had also flown out of Philadelphia the morning after the funeral, refusing to stay for lunch with her parents or give them any further opportunity to try and talk some sense into her about this crazy notion she had of going back to Wyoming.

After listening to him catalogue the different ways his daughter tried his patience, I couldn't imagine why Vic wouldn't want to spend more time with the man.

I did finally manage to turn the conversation towards her reasons for leaving Philadelphia in the first place – specifically the Donolato case and Ed Gorski. Once focused on the present, it didn't take long for Victor to relay the important pieces of information. After his partner's suicide, Gorski had been thoroughly investigated by Internal Affairs. No charges had ever been filed, but it had cast enough of a shadow that it ruined his career and he'd applied for and been granted an early retirement. Only a few months after that his wife had divorced him, taking their two kids, and he was allowed only supervised visitation with them – a red flag to anyone who knew anything about the system. Not that it mattered, because Gorski had dropped out of sight before the end of the year.

"Donolato and Gorski worked together for several years – I think Victoria dated Gorski at one time."

"That's what she told me, but it was before she married Sean."

The man sighed. "I'd hoped her marrying would get her to settle down, maybe take a desk job in the department. Her mother and I encouraged her to start a family."

"Can't imagine Vic doing anything behind a desk," I told him. "She's a damned good cop."

"She was on the short list for promotion," her father conceded. "I didn't want her to be a homicide detective, but she'd passed the test rather impressively."

"I've never had a better deputy," I told him honestly. "She's solid, and not much spooks her."

"You make her sound like a horse," Victor snorted.

"Well, we cowboys appreciate a good horse," I said, deliberately abusing his prejudices. "Did you know Gorski blamed Vic for Donolato's suicide?"

"I'd heard rumors," Victor admitted.

"I don't want to alarm you, but he's been here in Durant, stalking Vic. And if my suspicions are correct, he had something to do with her husband's death. So if there is anything else you know about Gorski, or can dig up on him, I'd sure appreciate it."

Victor promised to look into it, and asked me to keep him appraised of Vic's situation. He even gave me his cell number. I guess I'd been promoted to personal phone calls.

Sometime later in the morning I heard the main office door open, and a moment later Ruby greeted the new person with a "Hey, Ferg."

When I checked, Ferg was at his desk, looking at his phone while wearing a faded gray tee shirt, smutched with black ash and smelling like burnt anything but a good hardwood fire. What I did not see was Vic.

"Where's Vic?" Branch asked from where he lounged in his chair, saving me the trouble.

"At the Laundromat, washing what clothes she's got left," Ferg answered, still punching buttons. "We hauled whatever we could save out of her trailer and took it over to the U-Store place and rented a unit – didn't need a big one. She told me to go home and get cleaned up, but I stopped by to let y'all know we were done. She should be here before too long."

"You left her there alone?"

That got me a puzzled look. "Vic's a big girl. She's scarier than I am – she'll be okay at the Suds-N-Duds for an hour. It's just down the street."

"Vic is not okay," Branch said pointedly. "She just lost her husband and pretty much everything she owns, and now it looks like someone murdered the guy. By the way, Walt, I've called every hotel, motel, and no-tell between here and Montana. No trace of Gorski since he checked out of the Thunderbird two weeks ago."

"So we really think this guy killed Sean?" Ferg asked, then shook his head. "What is it with psycho ex-boyfriends?"

Branch sat up. "Ex-boyfriend? Vic was involved with Gorski?"

Ferg glanced at me, but answered. "A couple of months ago, he was calling her, like dozens of times. I guess she broke up with him and went back to her husband?"

"They were getting divorced," Branch reminded him.

It wasn't my story to tell, but I had to set the record straight. "Listen up," I told them. "Vic was involved with this loser, but it was years ago, before she was married. She broke it off long before she even met Sean, let alone married him."

Branch considered that. "So why'd he go after her now?"

"Back in Philadelphia, she turned in a dirty cop named Bobby Donolato. Donolato ended up eating a bullet from his own gun. Gorski was his partner, and he blames Vic. She moved out here with Sean to get a fresh start."

"But then Gorski comes out here to find her," Ferg reasoned out.

I nodded. "He wants to punish her."

"But - she did the right thing," Ferg protested. "She shouldn't be punished for that!"

"Sometimes doing the right thing is hard," Branch commented far too blandly. For a moment I wondered what was at the root of that, but figured it had to do with his attempt to take my job. His father had probably wanted to play it hard and dirty.

"Vic offered up her job to Gorski during that assault incident," I told them. "Apparently, that wasn't good enough. He's likely to come after her - hurt her. Maybe even try to kill her."

Ferg shook his head. "No wonder she's been kinda edgy lately."

"Gorski and his buddies made her life hell before she left. People you train with, work with, turning vindictive and hateful – it's bound to leave an impression." Victor and I had discussed some of the harassment Vic had endured before she resigned, but the boys didn't need to know all of it, any more than they needed to know about her affair with a married man - that was water under the bridge, though it made it all the more personal and painful.

"I can't imagine what I'd feel like if one of you all turned on me," Ferg said, then inhaled mightily, determination firming his broad shoulders. "We're gonna get this guy."

"Yes we will," I agreed. "In the meantime, why don't you go home. Take the afternoon off."

"Take a shower," Branch added.

As Ferg predicted, Vic came in just over an hour later, dragging a rolling suitcase with a big duffle bag on top of that. Her face and arms were freshly scrubbed and the seams of her shirt and her jeans were still dampish if the darkened line up her long legs was any indication. She must have changed into the freshly laundered clothing over at the Laundromat. The little travois was parked smartly up against her desk and she dug into yet another of the huge wooden drawers.

A pair of athletic socks landed on the desk, then with a pair of leggings, a running shoe, and another thermal shirt. A toothbrush and tube of toothpaste joined the pile. I firmly ordered my curiosity to stop wondering what else might be in that drawer. In the months prior to her divorce, I'd lost track of the number of times I'd come in to find Vic sleeping in the jail cell rather than go home to another argument. Most of us kept a few spare clothes here – mine were in the wash closet next to the office supplies.

"Aha!" Vic cried in triumph, pouncing on something. All the other stuff was swept back into the drawer, save a hairbrush that was quickly employed to pull her shorter mane into a pony tail. Then she shook out the uniform shirt and put it on, swiftly buttoning buttons and tucking it in with all the vigor of a rodeo cowboy in a calf-roping competition.

When she was done, she pulled her duty weapon from the locked drawer on the other side, along with her badge. Both were put in their proper place on her belt, and she sat down at her desk with an air of accomplishment.

"Welcome back, Vic," Branch drawled.

The afternoon saw only one real call, which Ferg took as soon as he got back. The rest of us filled our time with the paperwork involved in opening an arson investigation and getting the coordinating reports from Bev Gidelski and her crew, along with pictures and a few dozen other details. As promised, Lahaye sent us a copy of the financials and phone records the Montana Highway Patrol's office had pulled on Ed Gorski. After the night of Sean's accident, there had been absolutely no phone activity or use of his credit cards.

Branch summed it up. "He's gone to ground," he declared, flipping through the contents of the case folder on his desk. Technically he was lead deputy on this case since Vic was the injured party. "Maybe Montana'll have some luck."

"He burnt my house down yesterday," Vic reminded him. "He's probably in Colorado by now."

"Was he a hit-and-fade kinda guy when he was stalking you in Philly?" Branch questioned. I paused to listen to Vic's answer.

"He didn't really have a pattern," Vic mused, her cheekbone resting on one raised fist as she toyed with a pen. "Sometimes it was every other day for what seemed like forever. Then weeks would go by and just when I thought he was done, there'd be another note or bullet casing."

"Don't suppose you ever dusted them for prints?"

"No, it never occurred to me," she replied, her sarcasm hitting high on the Richter scale. "He was careful. No prints on the notes, on the bullet casings, nothing. The handwriting doesn't match his - I even thought maybe he was writing it left-handed, but apparently Ed can't do shit with his left hand."

The office door opened just then, and two men came in. One was young and sheepish, the other a bit older and looked annoyed.

"Thor Johnson," Ruby greeted the older man. "How have you been?"

"Fine, Miss Ruby. How're you?"

"Thor?" Vic questioned.

The man heard her and gave her a rueful grin. "Short for Thorvald – it's a family name. And I had it long before the movies came out, so Hollywood can suck it."

"I can see why," she murmured faintly.

The Johnson family has a handful of boys – I've lost track of how many. They come in various heights but they're all Scandinavian blondes. The oldest was named Gunnar, and the second was providently named Thorvald upon birth. He was shorter than average, but nearly as wide as he was tall and every bit of it muscle. I'd seen him haying with his brothers, shirtless and sweating in the full heat of summer while tossing hay bales like they were empty cardboard boxes. Cady had had a crush on him when she was a teenager. Fortunately for me and most of the other fathers in the county, Thor had settled down with his high school sweetheart and showed no signs of changing that.

"Well, what can we do for you gentlemen today?" I asked.

The younger man, not much more than a boy, shot his brother a truculent glance but held out a receipt stating that he'd paid a fine over at the county courthouse. "Can I have my gun back?"

"You're one of the idiots I ran out of the dump," Vic declared with dawning recognition. She took the receipt and read it, then held out a hand for my keys. "I confiscated his .22 – anyone so drunk he uses a loaded rifle to hold himself up straight is lucky I didn't kick his ass on general principles."

"Considering it was my gun," Thor interjected, "he's lucky I didn't kick his ass."

The gun case in my office has only one key, which I handed over. While Vic was fetching the weapon in question and Ruby chatted with Thor, I kept my gaze firmly on Lukas. Normally I'd lecture him, but I wasn't in the mood and was pretty sure his brother had already taken care of that issue. Lukas squirmed anyway, avoiding my eyes by glancing around the room and looking over the worn furnishings.

"Hey, I know that guy," he announced.

"What guy?" Branch asked, since Lukas was looking towards him at the time.

"That guy in that photo. Did he have another accident?"

Branch plucked the photo of Ed Gorski from the file on his desk and leaned towards the younger man.

"You've seen this guy?" he asked intently. "When?"

"Ummm – it was the day she took my gun," Lukas answered.

"MY gun," Thor corrected, taking possession of the self-same item from Vic as she came out of my office.

"Where were you when you saw him?" I asked. If it was before Sean's accident, it might not be relevant but any piece of information was valuable.

"We were at the liquor store, me and Will and the guys. We were buying beer and this guy was in there."

Branch glanced at my face, and then back to Lukas. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, he was missing some teeth and Doris was asking him if he was in an accident. He seemed real nice," Lukas added. "He heard us talking and wanted to know what we were doing on a Saturday night with all that beer and no girls."

"And you told him," I ground out as I put it all together.

"Well, yeah? It's not like the dump is a secret."

"What's this all about, Sheriff?" Thor asked. "Is Lukas in some sort of trouble?"

"No, not at all," I reassured him, doing my best to get my reaction under control. "This fella here, though – we'd like to ask him a few questions. If either of you see him, you let us know, all right?"

Thor looked at each one of us, then nodded. No fool, he knew we weren't gonna say anything else. "C'mon, Lukas. You still owe me about fifty bucks worth of chores."

Once the brothers had left, Branch looked at me. "You seem awful tense all of the sudden."

I looked at Vic. "That night you broke up the dump shoot-em-up party, someone took a shot at you. You got three holes in your truck and one in your shirt."

Vic swallowed. "You think Ed knew where the party was?"

"Ruby," I called. "Two weeks ago, someone called in about shots fired at the dump. Did that come from the county 911 or did they call the station direct?"

"Umm, that was direct," she replied after flipping through the call log book.

"Opportunity," I stated. "If Ed knew Vic was on duty that night, he could have followed those boys to the dump and set up a shooting stand."

"How good a shot is this guy?" Branch asked Vic.

She shrugged. "He's okay – not a marksman, certainly not sniper material. He had to practice to qualify every year."

Branch stood up and grabbed his hat. "Looks like I'm going to the liquor store," he announced. "Maybe Doris can tell me how often that guy comes in, and if he bought any Gray Goose lately."

"You be careful," I told him. "Any sign of Gorski, you call it in."

"Yeah, Dad, I got it," he told me.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering'…**

~Chapter 6~

By dinnertime, the Ferg had wandered back in for the evening shift and Branch had come back after striking out at the Kum-and-Go. Doris barely remembered the fellow with the missing teeth, didn't remember the boys buying beer two weeks ago, and didn't have any security tapes from her register. Essentially, she didn't have anything to offer other than a two-for-one pizza deal. Vic and Ferg split the pepperoni while Branch and I ate the meat-lovers.

The sun had gone down and twilight was fading fast as I turned off the main highway to the rural road that leads to my cabin. The only traffic to be seen was a brown delivery truck that pulled out of the nearest drive and turned towards the town we'd left behind. I flicked the lights on about halfway home but my momentary distraction made me forget about one of the spots in the road where the pavement is about due for some attention. The Bullet's right front tire crunched over the crumbled edges and found the pothole, causing the whole vehicle to buck like a spring colt.

Next to me, Vic bounced a little higher than I did. Gravity and the violent jostling did the same thing it does to newly-fed infants; she let out a belch that was as impressive as it was unexpected.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, covering her mouth with one hand. "We've got to quit eating all this junk food."

"All part of the glamor of wearing a badge," I told her. "Too much coffee, not enough sleep, overworked and underappreciated..."

"Don't forget the donuts," she quipped. After a minute or two, she spoke again. "Seriously, we all should lay off the crap. Branch is still healing, and I don't even want to know what your blood pressure is."

"That's classified information."

"Maybe after we close this case with my stalker from hell I'll make us all some lasagna. With a salad," she added.

Genuinely surprised, I shot her a look. "You can cook?"

"C'mon, Walt. Only daughter in an Italian family. Of course I can cook. I don't really _like_ it," she admitted, "but that's the one fight with my mother I lost."

"Dare I hope you can make tiramisu?"

"Yes, I can. The fact that you even know what that it is is shocking." Vic shook her head, gathering up a handful of things from the floorboard as we pulled up to my cabin. "We should totally do that."

"What's that?" I asked, getting out of the truck and following her up to the porch.

"A station dinner. Back in Philly, at my old precinct, we used to do picnics and events for the families. You know, kick back and have a few beers, meet everyone's kids. It was nice. Okay, maybe I hated it when I was a kid and it was my dad dragging us to the party, but once I was in uniform, it was cool."

"You were older," I pointed out.

"No, I could drink," she shot back.

I grinned at her. "'Spose we could do a pot-luck. Ruby makes a mean cheesecake."

"You could invite Cady, maybe Lizzie," Vic added casually as she put down her things on the couch next to the stacked-up blanket and pillow. "Branch is not allowed to invite Barlow, though."

"Well, Cady would probably show up," I stalled, but there wasn't any point in lying about it. "Lizzie and I aren't seen each other anymore."

"Oh, God. Walt, I'm so sorry. I thought maybe you were just keeping things quiet."

"We've all been keeping things quiet."

Vic fidgeted, visibly gathering her courage. "I know Lizzie said some things that weren't true, but I figured you had worked it out. It was never my intention to make things uncomfortable or anything."

"Like you said – we've all been busy lately. I think Lizzie would do better with a man who could spend a little more time and focus on her."

An awkward silence stretched out, our earlier rapport disintegrating. I cleared my throat, then jerked a thumb towards the bedroom. "I'm just gonna…"

"Sure," she agreed, turning her attention to the papers she'd brought from the office and spread out on the coffee table. I didn't pry; from the few glimpses I got in the time I wandered to the refrigerator and back, it looked like insurance or financial papers of some sort. I pointed out there was a table in the kitchen if she needed it.

"It's not very big – Martha used to call it our breakfast nook, not that we ever ate breakfast there. You're welcome to use it."

"Thanks," she said absently, rubbing at her forehead. "Mostly I'm just reading, right now. I have some stuff to fill out and some forms to send in, but it can wait. I have to go to the bank tomorrow anyway."

"All right, then," I told her. "Good night."

"Night, Walt," she called.

In the morning, I woke to the smell of food cooking. For a moment I was lost in the memories of a lifetime ago, of Cady running downstairs from her bedroom in the little house we had rented in Durant, her piping voice greeting her mother as she cooked us all breakfast. My little girl used to love to come and wake me up, launching all fifty pounds of herself at my sleeping form and telling me breakfast was ready.

A thunderous knock at my bedroom door brought me back to the present.

"Hey, Walt! Daylight's burning, and so's your breakfast!"

I followed the smell of real food and fresh coffee in the air, padding into the kitchen barefoot in my pajamas, my hair a mess.

"Morning," I told the woman at the stove, then glanced at the gray window over the sink. "Daylight's a bit of an exaggeration." The French coffee press was on the table, already pressed, with an empty mug that didn't stay empty long.

"I don't know what time you're usually up, but I need to use your shower," Vic told me as she slid an omelet out of a skillet I didn't know I owned onto a plate. A mostly eaten matching omelet sat on another plate on the counter.

"I had eggs?" I asked.

"HAD eggs. The milk was a little suspect, too, but it tasted fine. Your bread was furry, though, so forget any toast."

A pinch of cheese and some previously frozen pepper and onions garnished the omelet. Vic slid it on the table without ceremony and left me there, staring at it. My first bite was tentative. The second was bigger, and then I put my head down and inhaled the rest. Bless all the Italian women who force their daughters to learn how to cook. I ate every morsel and considered my empty plate with something close to sorrow.

I finished my coffee and piled the dishes in the sink – as much as I hate clutter, I hate washing dishes even more. By then Vic was out of the bathroom, her wet hair strewn across her neck as she put my couch back in order and folded the blanket. I went to get dressed, and before long we were nearly ready to go.

Leaving Vic to her last minute fussing with her papers, I walked out to enjoy the morning. The air was crisp and clear, though there were clouds on the mountains to the west. The haze towards the east had turned the sunrise into a glory of pink and gold.

"Hey, Walt," called Vic as she came down the stairs behind me.

I turned, and whatever she was saying was lost as I registered the dark blue sedan cruising up on the wrong side of the road, driving far slower than any of my few neighbors would have done. A hand emerged from the open driver's window, and instinct had me diving for Vic's form just before the shots rang out in the quiet morning.

"What the hell?!" Vic shouted, losing her grip on the sheaf of papers and the battered green thermos that she must have filled with coffee. I used our momentum to roll us to one side of the truck, ignoring the showers of broken glass. The high pitched tink of windows shattering was interspersed with the deeper twangs of lead piercing the steel body of my truck.

Crouched over her smaller frame, I waited out the barrage. It takes only about three seconds, tops, to empty a magazine. Before I could even total up the shots I'd heard, the squalling sound of tires indicated that our shooter had driven off.

"Son of a bitch!" Vic exclaimed. She got no argument from me.

Hours later, Branch piled the latest reports and photos of my newly ventilated truck on his desk and asked, "Walt, is there any way we can arrest Gorski just for the amount of paperwork he's causing?"

"I'll see what we can do," I promised, pouring some coffee. My old faithful thermos had broken this morning. On the grand scheme of things, it was a minor detail, but I'd had it for years.

"Think how much more paperwork you'd have if we'd actually gotten hit," Vic told him, working on her own reprinted paperwork.

Branch snorted. "You were right – doesn't seem like he's much of a shot."

"Not really," she agreed. "He hated going to the range with me."

"I read the summary you wrote up on him. Sounds like you put in some time on profiling."

"Sorta. I worked with him for a couple of years, remember?"

"What was he like?" Branch pressed. "Was he always a whack job?"

A sour expression crossed her face. "He was a jerk. He loved screwing with people. When I first met him, I thought he was just this funny guy who liked practical jokes. Then I found out he was married with two kids."

"So you dumped him?"

"Eventually," she hedged. "He had this way of sucking you in and screwing with you. Even when you knew he's screwing with you, you wanted to believe that this time, he's for real, you know?"

"Sounds like an absolute prince of a guy."

"Yeah. That's why I have trouble believing that he really wants to kill me – because then his game would be over. He wants to scare me, make me suffer."

"He probably killed your husband," Branch told her baldly. "How much more can you suffer?"

Vic shrugged, then glanced at me. "Maybe make me lose my job – make Walt think I'm more trouble than I'm worth."

"Right. Walt fire one of the best deputies Absaroka's ever had. That's probably the dumbest things I've ever heard come out of your mouth."

That was just like Branch – hide a genuine complement with an insult. "You already gave Gorski a chance to get your fired," I reminded her. "He didn't take it."

"So what does he want? Sean's dead. Your house has burned down. He emptied a clip at you this morning." Branch pulled another sheet of paper from the increasingly thick file on his desk. "Ferg did some research for me on stalkers, but even the professionals say there's no set pattern for them. The one that seemed closest to our guy is this bit about stalkers who plan out elaborate fantasies, then get pissed when reality doesn't match up."

"You may be on to something there," I told him. "Maybe he didn't plan on killing Sean. Maybe he just wanted to hurt him a bit, scare him. Get him in trouble with his company."

"Only the accident was more serious. And that's messed up Gorski's plans, made him speed up his agenda. He knows he's got a short timeline now that Sean's dead."

I looked at my two deputies – Branch was on the mend, while Vic was still hollow-looking and no one in their right mind would expect her to be on top of her game. My eye fell on the empty desk Ferg would occupy later today when he came in for the evening shift.

Branch was getting damned good at following my train of thought. "I know you're not fond of the F.B.I., but we may need the manpower. Vic's not all that fond of them either," he added with a grin. She rolled her eyes at him, but I had no idea why.

"I want to know how he's keeping a low profile," Vic ground out. Obviously she didn't want me asking more questions about why she had a problem with F.B.I, but it wasn't worth pursuing. "We've got his picture out to every law enforcement agency in Wyoming, you called every motel in the county… Where the hell is he?"

"He's probably camouflaged somehow," Branch speculated. "One thing about hunters, they like camouflage."

A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "Back in Philadelphia, he used to swear by the food truck."

"Go on," I said, figuring she was on to something.

"Philly has a lot of food trucks, and a lot of cab drivers. There are so many that nobody even notices them. Ed loved using them for surveillance."

Branch smiled like a coyote. "A stalking horse."

Vic frowned at him. "What is that?"

I could feel the same smile pulling at my face. "An O.I.T.," I told her.

She glared at me – maybe not her usual wattage, but I still felt it. My grin got bigger.

"It's an old hunter's trick," Branch told her. "You go out hunting for elk, you take a horse on a halter lead. I've never done it myself, but supposedly you circle towards the herd with the horse between you and them. The elk see another four-legged critter, they don't spook."

"The elk don't notice the horse has six legs?"

Branch and I both chuckled, earning us another glare. "That's the joke. Elk can't count."

"Well, I've never seen a food truck in Durant and we've got one guy who runs a part-time cab service. Ed's not hiding in one of those."

"Maybe not," I answered. "Branch, call Lukas Johnson. Ask him what Gorski was wearing that day at the liquor store. Maybe he was wearing a uniform of some sort – hell, call Billy Barnes and see if there's any other guys delivering flowers with him."

Branch nodded and reached for the phone. Vic stood and walked towards me, the sheaf of papers in her hand. She tapped it square and even with decisive blows on top of the fax machine – an always cantankerous device at the best of times. She loaded it and punched buttons, and for once it cooperated on the first attempt.

"Walt – I can't stay at your cabin anymore," she muttered in an undertone.

"You don't have a lot of choices," I reminded her.

"The jail cell worked fine for the last six months," she insisted. "This won't be any different." The muscle of her jaw flexed, and I damned Ed Gorski yet again. Every time I thought Vic might be coming out of her melancholy and regaining her feet, this bastard hit her again.

"Walt," Ruby called, "That Montana Highway investigator is on the phone."

"Be right there," I told her, then turned back to Vic. "Any calls you go on today, you take Branch or the Ferg along. If Gorski is taking shots at you, I don't want you out there by yourself."

"Yea, the buddy system," she snarked.

In my office the phone nearly slid off the desk as I snatched up the receiver. "Lahaye, tell me you've got something," I demanded.

"I got an update for the A.P.B. on Gorski," he replied. "Found some records that he bought a late model Crown Vic last month."

"Let me guess; it's dark blue."

"Yep – just like the paint on the back of Sean Glenn's company car."

"Too bad you're a day late and dollar short. That also matches the description of the car that was used in a drive-by shooting on my deputy a few hours ago. Any chance that car's a former patrol vehicle?"

"Shit," Lahaye responded. "Moretti okay?" I heard paper shuffling as he looked up the answer to my question.

"She's fine, but my truck needs some work. She was walking behind it when he opened fire."

"Damn it - Yes, it's a used patrol car, sold at auction."

"That means reinforced bumpers, maybe a cow catcher on the front."

"Gorski was a cop, right? Most academy training includes offensive driving – he would have known how to steer another car off the road and into that ravine."

"That's what I'm thinking."

"All right, I'm officially putting this down as a murder investigation. We'll need to get the Bureau involved in this."

Most of the time the Feds are more trouble than they're worth, but with a murder charge across state lines we didn't have much choice. "Add the VIN number to the A.P.B.," I told him. "We've got the Wyoming Highway Patrol on board, and we've contacted the neighboring county sheriffs' departments to be sure their folks are aware of the situation. Maybe they can get him before the Feds get mobilized."

"Good luck with that," he told me.

When I went back out into the office, Branch was on the phone with someone and Vic was avoiding eye contact. Ruby informed me that Clark at Roger's Repairs would be able to check my truck out today and get an estimate on the repairs. If it was still road-worthy I'd keep driving it until Clark had glass for the windows. The body work could wait.

"Vic," I called out. "I'm heading over to the shop to drop off my truck. You follow me and chauffer me back."

"Don't forget I'm gonna need a copy of the damages for the file," Branch reminded us.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 7~

It was both bright and early the next morning when I unlocked the door to the station and let myself in. Despite my best efforts, I must have made enough noise to wake the woman asleep in the jail cell. It may have also been the phone that began ringing before I'd made it into my office. I caught it on the second shrill jingle, but a bleary pair of green eyes peered around the row of iron bars mere moments later. Considering how much stress she's been under lately, the lack of a gun being pointed my way was probably a good sign.

Lukas Johnson was surprised to get a live person at that hour of the morning, and apologetic about taking a while to return Branch's call, but it was another dead end. He remembered Gorski had been in a uniform of some sort, but not what kind. He wasn't even willing to swear to a color. The most he was willing to commit to was a solid color. I appropriated one of Ruby's Post-its and left the information on Branch's desk – for once I could give rather than receive.

The sounds of water and a toothbrush in the bathroom was followed by a discreet spitting and Vic emerged with her face clean and a sports towel around her neck. She'd slept in her jeans and a tee shirt, so she only had to pull on her uniform shirt to get ready for the day – at least physically.

Her greeting was muted as I took a turn in the bathroom, filling the coffee carafe with water. Once she had tidied the jail cell up, she pulled up her office chair straddled it backwards. The blanket went across the back of the chair and she folded her arms over it, dropping her chin onto her crossed arms and staring at the coffee maker with an intense if half-mast focus as it trickled into the pot.

Before it had finished Branch came through the door, stopping when he saw that the station was already open for business. It was early by any standards, and it wasn't often that the entire day shift beat Ruby into the office.

"Where the hell did you get that?" Vic demanded. Her focus had shifted to the tall disposable cup in Branch's hand that smelled more like someone had lost an entire Christmas cookie in coffee-flavored syrup. If it were a drink at the Red Pony, it would have an umbrella in it.

"New coffee shop on the square," Branch told her, slurping it with deliberate enjoyment.

"Oh, my God – that smells like a real espresso," she breathed, longing clear in her voice.

Branch waved it back and forth, then pulled it back before she could reach for it. He used it to gesture to the blanket under her elbow. "You sleep here last night?" he asked. "Thought you were staying with Walt."

"I was. Now I'm staying here."

A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. "You two have a fight?"

"No," Vic replied evenly. "I'd just really rather not have my boss get shot because I was staying at his place." She tossed the blanket on Ferg's desk and grabbed a mug from the handful of clean cups we try to keep ready. Filling it, she dumped in a rough amount of sugar and sipped at it without bothering to stir it.

Ignoring their banter, I grabbed another mug and pour myself another cup of regular coffee. In my experience, coffee comes in either a red can or blue can, depending on which was cheaper at the Wally World in Odin when Ruby went shopping for office supplies.

"Why don't you just go to a motel?" Branch asked her as he settled into his chair. "Hell, go back to your old house."

The coffee cup hit her desk with a thump and she turned her attention to her computer. After a moment she answered him with curt facts. "I signed the house back over to the bank, okay? I can't afford the payments on just my salary."

"Didn't your husband have life insurance?"

"He switched his beneficiary over to his parents after we filed for divorce."

"Wow," Branch mused. "That kinda sucks."

"No kidding."

"I'd offer you my guest room, but I live in city limits and my next door neighbor is one of the biggest gossips in town."

"Like I give a shit that some little old lady thinks you're getting lucky," Vic shot back. "Does your dad still drop by to see if you're dying?"

Something about that tickled a thought in my head, like a trout disturbing the surface of water, but it was gone before I could catch it.

"Way, way too much," Branch admitted.

"I'll stick with the jail – thanks anyway."

He grinned at her. "Omar would give you a place to stay."

She shot him another disgusted glare. "You really want another homicide to investigate?"

We had a couple of calls that morning, but nothing terribly exciting. Branch went along with Vic, which left me to try and find the top of my desk. The job has its boring moments, but we don't begrudge the times when not much seems to be happening. Now, if only Ed Gorski would turn himself in, we could get back to some general work and catch our breath.

When the two returned, the bickering was less than usual and it turned out Branch had shown Vic the new coffee shop, going so far as to buy her a tall cup of something that probably cost more than my breakfast had this morning.

I'd stopped at the Busy Bee as soon as it had opened, mostly because the Bullet was just too damned cold. After Clark Rogers had inspected my ventilated truck yesterday, he'd called to let me know it was drivable but glass would take two days to get here and if we wanted him to do the body work – which I usually let Ferg take care of – it would take a week. The Ferg had dropped me off at Clark's shop and gone back to the station, assuming I was headed home. I hadn't said anything to let him know otherwise, but I ended up parking down the street from the station at a point where the streetlights are dim under one of the few remaining older oaks, and where I could see the front door. The lack of windows in the back made it a bit brisk, but I've been colder and survived.

Sipping her fancy coffee, Vic was staring out the window. She gave a guilty jump when I walked up behind her, but I gave her a friendly 'hey' rather than berate her for wool-gathering. We weren't that busy, and if she needed some time to sit and just think about things, I wasn't going to begrudge it.

Over her head I scanned what I could see through the tall sheet of glass. The station is located to one side of the central square of Durant, and from this vantage point there was a clear shot down the street and the shops that lined the sidewalk in an unbroken line for a full block. All of them were old, most of them built before Henry Ford built his assembly line, and therefore eligible for the historic registry if we had such a thing. The streets had been widened in the intervening years, the broad sidewalks made less so and the spacious green space in the center trimmed back like an overgrown bush. It occurred to me that if we had that good a view out the window, it begged the question of how good was the view in. On a whim I pulled Gorski's picture from the file and tucked it into my coat, put on my hat, and took a walk.

Next to the station is an old drug store, long since closed up. Only about half the store fronts are occupied – the recession hit most of the businesses around here pretty hard and several had closed in the last few years. The old sporting goods store was still running, if a bit worn at the heel, as was the dress shop that has been in place so long I remember my mother dragging me there when I was a boy. Signs of economic improvement were showing, however, like the new coffee shop that opened next to the Baroja Bakery and a couple of other new places. I wandered down one full side of the square, stopping now and then to talk to folks like Gerald Austin, who owns the hardware store across the corner from the station.

I also stopped frequently to check the angle to the station. Some of these buildings had apartments or storage spaces on their second floor. Now, if I were wanting to keep an eye on someone, I'd want to have an observation point. Vic was no blushing Juliet, and Gorski was not a frustrated Romeo, but there were several points where I could see the light through yon window in the form of a blonde head bent over a computer.

I skipped the Mayfair Antique Shop, since I knew the old couple who ran it had their storage area expanded through the adjacent walls just as their antiquing obsession had. It also didn't have the right angle to see the station, but across the next corner and in about two doors was a defunct bar that had closed up about ten years ago. I think Henry had considered it for the Red Pony but gotten a better deal out where he's currently at. When I checked, the play park for the kids lay directly in front of me, the many feet and scattered cedar chips keeping the trees at bay in an open expanse that left an almost direct path straight to the station. Squinting, I could just make out the form of fair Victoria, and Branch as well.

Continuing down the row, most of the doors were locked and the spaces behind those doors vacant. Real estate signs, faded for the most part, plastered some of the windows. The visibility was poor from this angle, due to the trees in the heart of the square. At the end of the block I cut around the back of the last building and into the alley behind the storefronts.

The rear of the square storefronts rose in a solid mass to my left. Crumbling red brick showed in spots where the layers of paint were peeling off, the curled edges showing the various colors of its history like the jawbreakers I used to gnaw on as a kid. The buildings on the right hunched close to each other, having been built in a variety of styles over a span of decades and grown into an organic wall of their own. What space there was between them was choked with weeds and trash and other flotsam, often fenced off with chain link higher than my head.

Widening this avenue had never been an option. It felt like a box canyon with the occasional gas meter or trash can standing in as scrub brush, and light at the end of the alley was further restricted by a squat delivery vehicle of some sort. I was surprised it even fit back here without leaving some of its paint on one side or the other.

I moseyed down the uneven passage, testing the doors as I went. The people of Durant may be old fashioned, but they weren't stupid; every single one was locked, and what few windows that hadn't been bricked up over the years were either covered with iron burglar bars or screwed-down plywood sheets. Wishing I'd counted better, I checked to see how far I'd come and tried to estimate how much farther the bar was from here. I was past the half-way point, so it had to be here somewhere.

A rumble of an engine broke the quiet, and I looked up to see that the delivery truck at the end had a driver and he'd started the engine up. A few things struck me at that moment. First, that this was the same delivery truck that I'd seen pulling out onto the highway from my road two days ago. Almost as if it had been waiting in that driveway for me to come by on my way home that night. Second, that it was parked behind the empty storefront and the derelict bar at the end of the row, neither of which had seen a delivery in this century.

And sure enough, the man behind the wheel was smiling with a one-sided wolf's smile. The other was missing teeth along the left upper side of his jaw. The truck engine growled and barked as it was thrown in gear, and it jumped forward with disconcerting speed.

Without even checking I knew I'd never make it back to entrance of the alley. The box canyon had always been a great place for an ambush, and I had walked right into this one. Automatically I drew my weapon – a Colt 1911A I've carried for so long the stag antler grip is worn white in places. One of the drawbacks is that it has a slow cycle time – I got off two shots and then had to do something, toot sweet.

I have no conscious memory of deciding; the moment I began firing, I also broke into a run – towards the truck. Along the wall of the alley was a squat shape of a gas meter, just to one side of a door whose lock I definitely didn't have the time to check. On the other side of the doorway was an air conditioning unit about thigh high. Further along and slightly higher than that was a window ledge. When it had been built by those optimistic boom town bricklayers so many years ago, they'd laid that window sill in at a slight angle, to allow rain to shed down to the ground. Only the sill and the slightly larger bricks above it betrayed the fact that there had ever been a window there; it had been bricked in for better than fifty years.

The truck engine howled and chuckled as he shifted gears, and I squeezed off one more shot as my left boot found the top of the gas meter. My right heel made a hell of clang as it hit the A/C's fan grill, and I prayed it would hold my weight as I put everything I had into pushing up and hitting that ledge with my left, damn the scuffed leather and full speed ahead.

The truck didn't have a nose to speak of, just a sloped surface that rose into the windshield and a rounded upper edge that hit my hip with a force that made college football seem like a pillow fight. Momentum threw me face first onto the roof just as the truck hit something solid – probably the A/C – and jarred me even further. My gun came loose somewhere as I scrabbled for a nonexistent handhold while tumbling across the flat brown surface. Then I was falling.

The pavement knocked the breath out of me and I gasped as my lungs tried to remember their function. My right hand searched for my gun, but it was nowhere. Desperately I rolled over, still choking on non-existent air, just knowing that bastard was going to back up.

Except he couldn't; the A/C was caught by the gas meter and doing a good impression of a can opener as it disintegrated between the truck and the brick wall, turning and crumpling in place while it gouged furrows in the aluminum side panel. The brick was more resilient, throwing out puffs of red gravel where the corner of the truck was scraping along.

When the truck finally forced its way past, it was obviously wounded. The frame might have been bent; the back end seemed to be canted at an angle from the front. The gas meter was tilted on its pipes, and the valiant A/C unit was nothing but a mound of shrapnel. The last I saw of Gorski was that brown behemoth belching smoke as it lurched around the corner onto the side street. A car horn sounded, loud and angry, but no crashing followed so someone must have stopped in time.

The stairs back up to the station were a trial; I managed them eventually and opened the door. Ruby's mouth dropped open when she saw me.

"Branch," I hollered, though not at my usual volume. "Call Ferg in and get over to the alley behind that old bar on the other side of the square. There's some damage to an air conditioning unit and a gas meter. Get someone from the gas company out to check it. Also, see if you can find the magazine for my gun before some dumb kid picks it up. Vic, fill out a warrant to search all the empty businesses over there and the spaces above them. Ruby, call the courthouse and see where Judge Wilson's at so we can get that signed in the next ten minutes."

"Walter!" Ruby protested. "Are you alright?"

I paused in my limping progress and turned to view her out of the eye that wasn't trying to swell shut. "I could use a bag of ice."

"You look like you could use some stitches," Branch added, opening the swinging gate for me. "What the hell happened?"

I looked over at Vic. "I found Gorski holed up above that old bar across the square. I bet when we go look, we'll find a whole surveillance setup in there. He's probably been using it to watch us all for weeks."

After finding my gun, which had somehow lost its magazine in its flight across the alley, I had found a door with a broken lock near where that truck had been parked. The stairs behind it were steep and narrow, but the dust had been cleared by someone going up and down them several dozen times.

Vic's eyebrows went up and her face blanched, but she didn't hesitate more than a moment before turning to do as she was told. Branch was still giving me a dubious look, as though wondering how hard I'd hit my head.

"Get going," I told him. And find that magazine – it's still got some ammo in it."

"How'd you lose the mag?"

"Fell off a truck," I told him. I was fortunate the damned thing hadn't gone off and shot something – or someone.

"Maybe I should go with him," Vic began, but I cut her off.

"Nope. You're too involved in this case – you need to stay out of it, and away from any evidence we might collect. And we have probable cause, but it'll be better if we get a warrant before we search it.

"Besides, we need to talk," I told her.

She gave me a puzzled stare, but did as I asked. Ruby bustled about, getting me a washcloth from the bathroom and advising me to wash up and see if my eyebrow needed stitches. Once clean, it was fine, but I wasn't so sure about my hat. She also brought me the old plastic blue gel ice pack we keep in the freezer, encased in a worn-out sock. We keep some on hand to serve as both insulation from the intense cold and to mop up any leaking that was still going on; I left a smear of red on it as I applied it to my manly brow.

"You should probably get that checked out," Vic told me, coming into my office. She crossed her arms. "You wanted to see me?"

I'd made it as far as my desk, and I hiked the non-bruised hip up on the edge. I would have sat down, but wasn't sure I'd be able to make it back on my feet if I did.

"Close the door," I told her softly.

That stubborn jaw set, but she did as I asked and returned to her centered, defensive stance. It made me wonder once again about her decision to leave Philadelphia. Had her superiors subtly or not so subtly encouraged her to leave? Was the career of a superbly qualified officer judged not worth the effort of dealing with this headache? And here she stood, waiting for another supervisor to kick her to the curb.

"Are you seeing somebody right now?" I asked her gruffly.

It was definitely not what she was expecting. "What?" she snapped in disbelief.

"Henry says you've been out at the Red Pony a few times, kicking up your heels a bit. That you left with a man one night."

Green eyes widened in outrage. "My husband was cheating on me for months, Walt! One time - ONE time, I go home with some cowboy…"

"That's not what I meant," I told her. "I think we were wrong about Gorski shooting at you the other morning. I think he was aiming at me."

Temper derailed, she frowned. "Why would he be shooting at you?"

I debated telling her, but she needed to know. "Gorski – he thinks we're sleeping together."

"Excuse me?"

"That day I went to the hospital, Ed asked how long I'd been sleeping with you."

"Really?" Her head tilted from one side to the other as she put the pieces together. "So you think Ed actually wants to hurt other people, not just… Oh, my God." One trembling hand covered her mouth. I've seen Vic shake from the cold, and several occasions seen her vibrating with anger. But never fear.

"What is it? Talk to me, Vic."

"He said…" She swallowed. "Ed said he wanted to hurt me. To feel what it was like to have everything I cared about taken away from me. I thought he meant things –like my house, my job. But my husband? And you?"

"He lost his family a few months ago. Wife left him, took the kids."

"How do you know that?"

"I called Philadelphia," I admitted, but barreled along before she could ask me who exactly I had talked to. "Not long after he took retirement, not long before he showed up here. If he blames you for his own marital troubles, that could have given him all the more reason to come out here and mess with you."

"Oh, God. I'm so sorry, Walt. I never meant to get you – any of you – involved in this."

"I think it's safe to say Ed Gorski isn't firing on all cylinders. But if you are seeing someone right now, they ought to be taking precautions as well."

She shook her head. "Not a problem. I don't even remember his name. It wasn't exactly memorable."

Not knowing what to say about that, I said nothing.

"He was really drunk," she elaborated.

"Since when did that bother a cowboy on a Saturday night?"

That earned me a patented Moretti eye roll. "Let's just say his gun went off before could get it out of his holster."

I could feel my ears go red; for just a moment I was grateful for the colors already appearing on my face. Clearing my throat, I changed the subject.

"Well, in the meantime, I don't want you here at the station alone at night. You can stay at my place..."

"No," she said immediately.

"Vic, you're.."

"NO! It's one thing if I'm out working with one of you. But if he thinks we're involved, and I go home with you at night, it might as well paint a target on you. In fact, you should probably stop wandering around town by yourself looking for trouble.

"And don't go home alone tonight," she added.

I winced at that, almost literally. Rules I'd set out for her safety were coming back to bite me in the ass. Easing the same sore ass away from my desk, I stood up.

"Fine," I told her. "Looks like we're both sleeping here tonight."

"Here?" she questioned.

"We got two bunks," I reminded her. "And you better hope Ed doesn't try to burn down my cabin. Henry put a lot of time into that place."

(Author's note: Yes, I know it's actually 'tout de suite' but Walt's got a warped sense of humor.

As for the gun – In the books, Walt carries a .45 Colt 1911. Go to As the Crow Flies and find his conversation with Lo Lo Long in Chapter 4. I've never handled a 1911, but I own a Ruger 9 mm and the damned mag pops out like a jack in the box when I hit the release button. The Colt's release is even more prominent than on the Ruger. However, with a trigger guard I doubt it would have fired.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

(Author's note – please notice that my version of Branch Connelly has not completely lost his mind. This pretty much ignores anything after the first few episodes of Season 3.

BTW, who else needed a tissue after watching Walt scatter his wife's ashes on Monday night?)

~Chapter 8~

Once Branch called to say he'd located Judge Wilson and had the warrant signed, I left Vic in charge of the office and Ruby in charge of Vic while I walked back over to the bar, telling myself the exercise would keep me from getting too stiff. Branch had backed his Charger into the alley, the trunk open for the evidence equipment, and he and Ferg were already up in the apartment, checking things out.

The small set of rooms was a bachelor's rat nest, dusty and filled with bits of old junk. One wall had a pop-up trashcan full of rumpled take-out debris, while stacked next to it on the floor was a pile of empty cardboard pizza boxes. Surveying the leaning tower of pizza, it occurred that I really should have called my friendly neighborhood pot dealer and pizza delivery man – Jamie might have been able to tell us where Gorski was weeks ago.

Several water-cooler sized bottles lay nearby, and Ferg warned me not to open the 5-gallon bucket in the closet. A single table and chair afforded a view out the window, but was set back far enough that it wouldn't be visible from the street. The tabletop had round marks in the surface, in pairs, indicating someone had been using binoculars for surveillance. An old heater had been crudely patched into the ancient chimney but it didn't look like the man had been foolish enough to use it.

The opposite wall had an air mattress, a sleeping bag, and a power strip that snaked through a hole by the stud and presumably connected to an electrical outlet above one of the neighboring, occupied stores. A microwave, a clock, and a black power cord that probably belonged to a laptop all shared the power strip. Last of all was a police scanner, tuned to our frequency. It seemed Mr. Gorski had been keeping tabs on all of us.

Instead of an altar of trinkets stolen from Vic or the clichéd mural of photographs on the wall, we found a short stack of cheap notebooks, the kind that go on sale around back-to-school time. I thumbed through one – it was a meticulous detail of Vic's life since Gorski had first come to Wyoming and several weeks before he'd first approached her. The books chronicled the dates and locations of her activities, from work calls to grocery shopping to a lunch date with her husband. Scattered among the bare facts were banal comments on her life, that her hair looked nice that day or whether she'd finished eating her dinner and dispassionate speculation on whether or not she was screwing her boss when her husband was out of town.

Pictures were taped in amongst the pages on an irregular basis. All were of Vic, performing mundane tasks like filling the gas tank on her patrol vehicle or coming out of the Bee with a take-out dinner. A disturbing number of them were taken of her at her house. Fortunately, they were all from the outside; a glimpse of her vacuuming her living room or picking up mail from the mailbox. One shot had been taken through her kitchen window, where she stood in the thin early morning light filling a teapot from the faucet, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her free hand, a barely-there sleep rumpled camisole clinging to the curves of her breasts.

There were more comments as I thumbed through the timeline; he'd had a melt-down the night he'd followed her to a bar and watched as she'd gone home with some cowboy only to leave again ten minutes later. That entry had a full dissertation over her emotions as she pummeled her steering wheel before driving off. Gorski wanted to know why Vic used her anger to keep other reactions at bay, and what it would take to make her cry. He'd underlined it: 'What would it take to make you cry, Vic?' It was dated about four days before Sean had died in an accident on the road west of Billings.

"Hey," I called to my two deputies as I closed the notebook. "Vic never sees these, you understand?"

It was hours before we finished bagging and tagging everything. Branch just looked at the pile of evidence filling the trunk of his car and shut it with resignation; more paperwork for this case.

The night shift gets a little lonely, sometimes, and the Ferg was glad to have company that evening. He chatted almost non-stop for the rest of his shift, and even managed to get Vic involved in a conversation about fishing techniques, of all things. She's been in Wyoming for three years and I've never seen her with a pole in her hand or even once express an interest in getting on the back of a horse. Imagining my big-city deputy in the saddle was humorous enough to get me through the discomfort of my mistreated body lying on that lumpy old mattress, and I fell asleep still listening to Ferg and Vic talking.

In the morning, Branch brought us all some breakfast and news that the highway patrol had found the delivery truck abandoned off one of the county roads, not far from the illegal dump. The truck had been stolen in Jackson Hole, which is far enough away that we wouldn't have seen a report about it. They'd also found tire tracks that showed a second vehicle had been parked in that same spot – safe money that it was the dark blue Crown Vic with the reinforced bumper. That meant that Gorski had a vehicle again, and was probably finding another hideout. Patient, smart, and methodical made for a good cop, but it was a something of a pain in the ass for a suspect.

Two more days passed while we waited for someone to spot Gorski, or his car. The Wyoming Bureau of Investigation called me back, but was apparently too short-handed to rustle up a proper man-hunt for a suspect in a Montana car accident. Not that we had any good clues on where to look for him in the first place – he still hadn't used his credit card or his phone. Lahaye in Billings did call to tell us he'd found surveillance footage of Ed Gorski in the same bar where Sean was drinking the night he died. It gave more weight to Gorski as a legitimate suspect, but we'd all passed that point days ago. It still left us with no leads on Gorski and no idea where to go hunting for him.

Vic's nerves were strung tight with frustration, which was understandable when I remembered her comment about Gorski's history of harassing her to the breaking point and then backing off, watching and waiting for her to slowly relax her guard just to begin his game all over again.

Branch was less understanding – a big cowboy who'd only had his heart broken once or twice, his emotional repertoire was lacking a few chords.

"I get that you're irritated," he told her as he finished his lunch. "But I don't see why it shakes you up so bad. The only time I've seen you this wound up is when Walt was missing on that mountaintop."

"Can you just do me a favor and shut up?" she told him, tossing the remnants of her own meal in the trash.

"I'm just saying – you're letting this guy get to you."

"He killed Sean," she told him tersely. "He tried to kill Walt – he might go after you or Ferg. How am I supposed to act?"

"I expected you to be pissed. Sorta got used to Vic the Valkyrie."

"Right," Vic scoffed.

"Seriously. There's not a man in this county that wants to tangle with you when you've got that pissed-off expression on your face. You can be a little intimidating. And a little…"

"A little what?" Vic snapped when his voice trailed off.

"Hot," Branch answered, grinning that damned grin of his. It served its purpose; Vic snorted but retrieved her pen and went back to her paperwork with renewed determination.

Maybe Branch had it right. Vic had more flavors of anger than I could count, everything from mildly irritated to radioactive. It served as both fuel and vehicle to carry her through the obstacles life threw at her, and she wrestled them all with the same no-holds-barred attitude. No matter if she stumbled, or even fell, she made no excuses and got back up. A generous measure of determination had given her an iron spine, and I don't know anyone that would bet against her. If anyone ever asked, my money was on her.

Saturday was fairly busy, which was not unusual. Despite my misgivings, Vic went along on just about every call that came in, taking Branch and Ferg along by turns. Every minor fender bender or loud music complaint was a possible set-up by Gorski, but we had a job to do and it wouldn't do Vic any good to keep her from doing it. I still required them all to call in when they arrived at a scene, and before they left.

By Sunday afternoon, however, things were dead and Vic and I were both getting a little stir-crazy. I'd given both Branch and Ferg the whole day off, while the two of us played Miss Havisham around the station. I did a lot of reading, and Vic was using her computer for things that weren't strictly official business, but what the hell. The phone didn't ring, and kept it up all day.

Finally around one in the afternoon, the door to the station was opened, catching Vic playing solitaire and me contemplating the stack of books in the corner, debating between alphabetical by author or by subject.

"Ruby?" Vic greeted our receptionist and dispatcher with surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Still wearing a floral dress for church, Ruby smiled and said hello, then held up a large plastic bag, the kind with a zipper that the stores sell comforters and such in. Its contents, however, were not store-bought.

"Edna Maloney has been driving the quilting group at church crazy for months wanting to get this quilt done in time for her grand-daughter's wedding. Apparently she's been driving Lacey and her mother crazy too, because last week Lacey and her fiancé eloped to Las Vegas, and most of their family went along too – except Edna. And now Edna is furious and thinks that it's the end of civilization as we know it because apparently nobody wants to do a big church wedding anymore."

'Huh," I said. "The way I hear it, Lacey didn't fit in her wedding dress anymore."

"Walter Longmire, have you been gossiping?" Ruby teased. "Yes, that's true, too. She and Andrew are expecting, and they decided it wasn't worth the expense of a big wedding when they're going to have a baby in six months.

"But in the meantime, Edna had a hissy fit and decided her granddaughter didn't deserve to have a brand-new, hand-made quilt." She held up the bag again, and even folded up I could see the hand stitched masterpiece.

"Give her a couple months. She'll be starting a baby quilt soon, I bet." The quilting guild met at Ruby's church, I remembered, and they made one for each new bride. Expectant mothers got baby blankets, and the senior citizen home got lap quilts for their residents.

"Oh, I'm sure," Ruby agreed. "So when they were trying to decide what to do with this one, I suggested they give it to Vic."

It took Vic a moment to register what Ruby was saying. "Me?"

"Yes, you. I told them how you'd just lost your husband, and then your house burned down. The ladies thought you should have this to help you start over."

"Wow. Um, thanks. Thank you so much." Hesitant, Vic took the bag from Ruby and unzipped it. The fabric inside was put together in a pattern I sorta recognized; a mosaic of darker colors interlocked with paler shades that formed a starburst from the center.

"It's beautiful," Vic managed. With her head down, she stroked the interlocking design and sniffled, truly touched by the generosity of women she didn't even know. "I don't know what to say," she managed.

"Just say thank you," Ruby told her warmly. "But be sure you do it with a card, and be sure to include Edna specifically or she'll have another hissy and I'll never hear the end of it. I think I've got one or two in my desk."

"Okay," Vic agreed, smiling. She glanced at me, her expression both bewildered and joyful at once, and it looked good on her. I wondered if Ed Gorski had ever seen this expression; Vic with a genuine smile on her face was a sight to see.

Almost reluctantly, Vic folded the quilt back up and put it in the bag, zipping it shut. After looking around for a good place, she tucked it into the knee hole of her desk, and it occurred to me that she was essentially homeless. Until Gorski was locked up, it wouldn't be safe for her to find another place to live.

Even though I had a cabin waiting for me, I could testify that showering here at the jail was uncomfortable at best. When this building had first been converted to its current use, some idiot had thought putting the jail cells and prisoner shower facilities in the basement was a good idea. Mostly it felt like a low budget horror movie down there, with dim lighting, musty smells, and a hot water heater that lasted approximately half as long as it should before it ran out of hot water.

Monday came, and went, as it does. On Tuesday afternoon, Ferg took a call pretty much as soon as he came through the door and Vic went with him. It was a home burglar alarm, so Branch waited until they called in.

It seems the homeowners had a motion alarm on their system, and set it religiously. However, they'd failed to replace their back door when their dog had gone on to that big doghouse in the sky. A local raccoon had found the rubber flap over the dog door and decided to investigate their kitchen. According to Vic, the raccoon was smart enough to open cabinets and the refrigerator. It was unimpressed with the contents, however, and the kitchen was an unholy mess. The homeowners were also upset that the raccoon had gotten upset when Vic and Ferg chased it out of the house, because it had defecated all over their fancy carpet.

After hearing the whole story, Branch chuckled all the way down the stairs as he left.

Left to my own devices, I sat in my office in solitary splendor and watched the sunset while I waited for my dinner to arrive. From my window, I could see when Vic's truck pulled up in the street. Ferg and Vic got out, chatting, Vic carrying the bag of burgers while Ferg carried a gallon jug of tea. Even from this distance the smile on Ferg's face was clear, and Vic's blonde hair caught the last few rays of sunlight as she glanced around, automatically scanning their perimeter. It was a habit most cops got into – always being aware of their surroundings. It was a good habit to have.

If I hadn't ambled to the main room of our station to get a head start on my dinner, I don't know if I would have heard the scuffle. I might have heard Vic cussing as she hit the staircase. I definitely would have heard the gunshot.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 9~

Venomous curse words, strangled and breathless, greeted my ears as I tore out of our lobby and across the small veranda at the top of the staircase. It was unusually dark; we have automatic lighting that comes on when it gets dim, but those lights had been turned off. Just below the floor level I could barely make out two figures struggling; any thought it might have been Ferg and Vic evaporated instantly as the flash of a knife caught my eye.

The heavy thumps of metal on wood sounded, and the gleam of Vic's service weapon as it was battered against the wall came into focus as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Vic lay on her back on the stairs, a man over her, trying to beat her gun from her hand as he pinned her down with his body. His right hand held a knife, and she had a death grip on his wrist even as she tried to keep her grip on her gun.

He was bigger than her, though, and using his superior position to his advantage. The gun clattered down the stairs and she instantly grabbed for the knife with both hands, the cords of her vulnerable neck standing out as she strained to keep his weight from bringing the blade any closer.

"FREEZE GORSKI!" I shouted, my own gun coming to bear.

Before I could interfere, a roar came from below them. Ferg plowed into the struggling pair, getting one big hand around the man's neck in a hold that would have been illegal in any wrestling match. I'd forgotten that Ferg wrestled in high school, but he hadn't and he used his greater weight to advantage. Unfortunately the stairway is steep, and they both went tumbling backwards down the stairs.

An unfamiliar voice screamed in pain and a crack of either wood or bone echoed in the confined space. The two crashed through the door at the bottom of the stairs, bursting the latch through the wood and spilling them out onto the sidewalk. My boots thundered down the treads until I reached Vic. Her eyes were wide and she was bleeding from somewhere, but scrambling for her gun and shouting something incomprehensible that sounded like "go, go, go!"

Plunging down the last half of those narrow stairs, maybe hitting every third one, I saw two pairs of legs rolling away from each other, the longer, skinnier ones finding traction sooner and disappearing. I jumped over Ferg's legs as I plowed through the doorway. Outside, the streetlights were beginning to flicker on, sending out a feeble light into the twilight. I didn't realize I had my gun up until the group of folks coming out of the antique store across the nearby corner let out alarmed exclamations. I hesitated when I saw them – it's not a good idea to start a gun battle in the middle of town.

Sure as hell, just as I lowered my gun, I heard a car door behind me and an engine gunned to life. Across the street was a dark blue Ford, and it left black marks on the pavement as it accelerated with all the torque its 4.6 liter dual overhead cam engine could muster.

Less than a second later my gun was holstered and my keys in my hand. I didn't approve of car chases and I wasn't sure the Bullet could catch that car, but I was damned sure going to find out.

"Oh, shit! Ferg!"

When I turned, all thoughts of chasing Gorski vanished. My youngest deputy was slumped against the brick wall of the station, trying to regain his feet. His round face was dark with rage and frustration, and I'm not sure he'd even noticed the knife sticking out of his shoulder.

"Stay down, Ferg," I ordered, joining Vic on the pavement as she attempted to keep Ferg from getting up. I put my hand on his uninjured shoulder to help keep him from struggling.

"We need to go after him!" Ferg protested. "I think I broke his arm or something – he was holding it when he ran off."

"We need to get you to the hospital," Vic argued, one hand holding his right arm down and the other clamped around the wound. Her fingers were firmly pressed to either side of the blade, but blood was steadily oozing over her knuckles.

"Oh," Ferg said in different voice. "Ow?"

"Yeah, ow," she told him, laughing breathlessly. "Nice going, Tarzan."

"You okay?" I asked her, noting the blood on her face, and the cuts on her arms as well. None looked deep, but they were leaving red trails down to her wrist, where it joined Ferg's on the khaki shirt.

"I'm fine," she told me. "We need to get him to the E.R. This much blood, I think it might have hit an artery or something."

"Keep pressure on it," I instructed. "I'll get a towel, then we'll get him in the truck."

"Call it in," she suggested. "They can be ready for us when we get there."

We made quite a sight, I'm sure, when Vic's truck pulled up in front of Durant Memorial and unloaded two bloody deputies. Branch showed up at nearly the same time. I'd called him in as well and he was appropriately concerned, despite the additional paperwork it meant.

Branch went with Vic to get a statement and keep an eye on her, while I accompanied Ferg into the E.R. A dark-haired nurse practitioner helped cut the ruined shirt off of Ferg, and I thought she looked familiar. A quick check of her name tag confirmed it; she was one of Henry Standing Bear's many nieces or cousins or other extended family. Among the Cheyenne family isn't defined by exact relationships. It's a more nebulous but inclusive concept that is superior in many ways than how I was brought up.

Fortunately the bleeding had stopped by the time a few X-rays had been taken, and the doctors decided Ferg wouldn't need surgery. A minor crack in his arm bone had been discovered, but they said the tendons were all intact and whatever had been bleeding had closed off without causing any further issues.

"Deputy Ferguson, the doctors say you can get stitched up now," the Cheyenne woman told him. She kept her eyes modestly down, which struck me as odd. While it might have been traditional for Cheyenne women to avoid the eyes of strange men, most of the younger generation didn't follow that any longer. In addition, this woman was a medical professional.

"You can call me Ferg," he told her. "Almost everyone does."

She smiled, that subtle upturn of her lips as she glanced at him through her eyelashes. I blinked. Was she flirting with him?

"Not everyone calls you that," she informed him as she laid out a suture kit and prepared a needle of lidocaine.

"Sure they do," he corrected, manfully suppressing a wince as she swabbed his shoulder with something sharp-smelling and then began to numb the two-inch gash. "What else would they call me? My Dad used to call me Junior, but that's because we've got the same first name. I hated it, though."

"I don't care for my first name, either," she confided, gently poking his arm with a gloved fingertip. He was too focused on her face to do more than frown at the pain. "A little bit longer, then I can start."

"What's your first name?" Ferg asked.

"Myra."

"I like it," he declared.

"Yes, but with my family name, it got me in a lot of trouble."

"Why's that?"

"I got in a lot of fights in school."

Ferg scoffed, too busy watching her to notice the needle Myra had picked up. "So what's your last name?"

She shook her head. "You'll laugh," she said.

"Promise I won't," he swore, raising his other hand like a pledge.

"You will," she replied as she began making neat stitches in his arm.

"Really, I won't," he promised.

In answer, she turned her upper body coyly, revealing the name tag pinned above her left breast. Maybe Vic was right, and everyone was flirting and I had just never noticed.

"Little Pony," he read. "That's not so bad – oh!"

"Yes," she agreed. "Myra Little Pony. You laugh and I will stab you," she warned him, holding the needle handy.

"I won't laugh," he promised again, though his grin spread all over his face. It faded just as quickly, and I wondered what kind of drugs they had him on. "Hey, you said not everyone calls me Ferg. What else do they call me?"

"Some of my friends – they call you _Nahkohe H__áenome_."

Ferg tried to repeat it and tripped over the vowels. "What is that?"

"It means… Sleeping Bear."

Disappointment spread across his features. "Like a teddy bear?"

"Perhaps," Myra replied, with that same mysterious smile that told me she was no-doubt-about-it flirting. "But when is a bear the most dangerous?"

"When it comes out of hibernation," he answered.

"Exactly. And everyone knows you don't mess with a bear, especially a sleeping bear."

Ferg looked both embarrassed and pleased at that. He is a bit of a teddy bear, but she was right; everyone in this part of the country respected bears. Ferg was an avid fisherman and hiker and that round face and bit of softness on the outside were layered over solid muscle. His dad weighed 350 pounds and was shaped like a bowling pin, but I'd seen him hip check a stubborn steer and make it move.

"You'll need to keep this arm in a sling for a few days," she instructed as she finished up. "You can use it when it starts feeling better, but if your fingers go numb or your arm feels like it's going to sleep, you need to come back in immediately. You can get the stitches out in about ten days. Your regular doctor can do that, or you can come back here and we'll do it."

"Will you be here?" Ferg asked shyly.

That earned him another Cheyenne Mona Lisa smile. "I'm usually here on weekdays."

"Cool," he told her, smiling himself.

I had to leave at that – Ferg was obviously in good hands and I didn't think I could take any more flirting tonight. Down a couple of doors, I found Branch and Vic in the same room. They weren't talking, and they sure as hell weren't flirting. In fact, Branch looked relieved to see me.

"She all right?" I asked.

"Couple cuts, seven stitches," he answered. "Won't take a pain pill, even though she's got bruises all over her back and a possible concussion from hitting the stairs. Mostly, she's pissed off."

"I thought you preferred her that way," I joked. She shot us both a look that could have blistered paint.

"Not this pissed," he answered. "She's all yours."

"Well, if you can drag Ferg away from his new girlfriend, you get a statement and then take him home."

"Girlfriend?" he echoed. "I gotta see this." He walked off, his casual saunter disguising the fact that he's still not quite up to full strength. At this rate, we were all gonna be on restricted duty.

"Hey," I greeted Vic, who sat on the bed wearing a blood-splotched tank top, a couple of taped-on square bandages, several band-aids on her fingers, and a furious expression.

"Hi," she bit out. "How's Ferg? And what's this bullshit about a girlfriend?"

"His nurse is a fan," I told her. "They were kinda sickening, to be honest."

"Great. He nearly gets killed and now he's found true love."

"Don't know about true love, but she could do worse," I commented. "The real question is, how are you? Besides pissed?"

"I'm fine," she told me shortly.

I hadn't believed her the last dozen times she said it, and I didn't much believe it now.

"You're not fine, Vic. You've had one hell of a year and I think you ought to take some time off."

"You're firing me?" she demanded hotly.

"No – No, not at all. I just think you need to take an entire day off from being a cop. Maybe two. We've both been stuck in that station for too long."

"I'll take off when Gorski is off my ass," she retorted. "I don't have a life, I don't have a place to go – I don't have anything until that asshole is either in jail or in the ground!"

"Gorski was making a point tonight," I told her bluntly. "You're not safe at the station."

"I'm not safe anywhere, Walt," she said wearily. "He could have shot me at any time these last few weeks. It's another one of his stupid attempts to fuck with me. The only reason he came after me with a knife tonight is because he wants to draw this out as long as possible."

"Maybe," I told her. "But I'm about to put you in protective custody up in Montana."

"Yeah? What about you?" she challenged. "You said Ed thinks we're involved. If he can't find me, I'm sure he'd be happy to take you out instead."

"I'll find something," I told her. "Someplace you can be safe, and get a little distance from this whole thing. Somewhere no one would think to find you."

"Again - what about you? Or Ferg? Or Branch?" She shook her head. "He's not gonna be happy unless he's tormenting me. I don't want you all to get caught up in the cross fire."

"I'll tell Ferg to watch himself from here on out. Branch and Ruby, too. But you're out of this, understand?" She stared at me, then turned her head to stare at the wall rather than answer me.

"How about just one night off?" I suggested as a compromise. Finally, she nodded. She looked tired as hell, and I couldn't blame her.

At the nurse's station I commandeered a phone and started making phone calls. Omar was my first choice – he's got a large house, a first rate security system, and more guns than I was really comfortable with anyone owning. His phone rang several times before it went to his answering machine, or voicemail or whatever it's called these days. It said he was in the mountains for the week, leave a message and he'd return it when he got back Saturday.

I didn't. Frankly, Vic spending a week with Omar might get one or the other of them killed. He has a knack for getting on Vic's nerves, and his idea of courtship was annoying a gal until he wore her down. Vic was more likely to brain him than to sleep with him, and I doubt any jury hereabouts would convict.

The next one was harder, and it took me a minute to steel my nerves to it. The phone rang a couple of times.

Hello?" answered a husky woman's voice. I closed my eyes as I remember that same voice calling my name out in passion, her hot breath on my neck.

"Hey, Lizzie. It's Walt."

"Walt Longmire. It's been an age and a half. What possessed you to call me at this late hour?"

It wasn't that late – not even nine pm, at least according to the clock. On another scale, I was far, far too late.

"How are you?" I asked, remembering my manners.

"I'm fine, Walt. Not that you really care. What do you want?"

Right. Cut to the chase. "Lizzie, you own a lot of property around here in Absaroka and Cumberland County. I was hoping you had a place for me to borrow. Or rent, even."

"How long is a while?"

"Don't know for sure, yet. Needs to be out of the way, not too far from town. But private."

"Setting up a love nest?" she asked bitterly.

I deserved that. "No – I need a safe house. I've got a woman with a real unhappy ex-boyfriend. He's been stalking her - he came after her with a knife tonight." It was the truth, if not exactly the whole truth.

"Oh," Lizzie replied, softening slightly. "Well, there's a cabin - it's out of the way, actually, but it's adjacent to my place. I was making it into a guest house. It has running water and electricity, but there's no heat. You fill the wood bin and we'll call it even."

She told me how to find it, and then the silence stretch out. "How have you been?" she asked finally.

"Busy," I answered automatically. "'Bout the same as usual."

"Is your friend Henry still in prison?"

"He's out on bail – not sure if the case is gonna go to trial. There's some questions about the evidence."

"Well, I hope things turn out all right." There was a long pause. "Walt…" The longing in her voice made me feel bad – made me almost wish that I could do something about it.

"I'm sorry, Lizzie," I told her. "I'm real sorry."

"For what?"

I thought about it for a moment. "That I couldn't be the man you wanted me to be."

"Me too." There was another pause. "What about Vic?"

"What about her?"

"Is she the woman you want her to be?"

I didn't have an answer to that, so I sidestepped the question and thanked her again for the use of the cabin. She said goodbye, and hung up. It sounded mighty final.

I drove Vic back to the station, where she grabbed her jacket and a few clean clothes and joined me in her truck. We drove out to Lizzie's place, stopping for some basic supplies and checking for any dark sedan that might have been tailing us. Eventually we pulled up onto Lizzie's property and found the dirt track beside her big house that led off into a wooded area, eventually taking us to a small cabin above a creek. Ferg would have loved it for fishing, but Vic barely glanced at it as she shoved her way into the cabin.

"This place is even smaller than yours," she announced, flicking on the light switch. Two lamps on either side of the fireplace lit up, but that was it.

It was a one room rectangle, if you didn't count the partitioned corner with a curtain across the doorway. The bottom of a shower stall and a toilet was just visible under the hem of blue gingham fabric. The rest of that end of the room had just enough space left for a stove and a sink. At the other end of the rectangle was a double bed, the mattress bare and covered with a sheet to keep dust off of it.

In the middle, a small sofa and chair faced the fireplace. It was charmingly rustic and surprisingly clean. The floorboards showed signs of having been recently finished, and matching blue gingham curtains hung in the windows.

Fortunately the wood bin outside wasn't entirely empty, and I placed an armload of wood near the fireplace while I got a fire going. Vic washed her hands in the sink and went to change, tossing her bloody shirt into the trashcan. Yet another uniform bites the dust.

When she emerged from the bathroom, her hair was loose and her face freshly scrubbed. She'd changed into a set of loose gray cotton pants, the kind women seem to wear to sleep in these days. Her shirt was another of her long sleeve thermal tees. This one was dark blue, which I guess made her waist the Mason-Dixon Line.

"I called Branch," I told her, nodding to where her cell phone lay on the arm of the sofa. "He's gonna sleep at the jail tonight to keep an eye on things. Tomorrow morning I'm gonna call the Wyoming Bureau and see about getting some more manpower down here."

"Our entire department is walking wounded," she commented dryly and sat on the sofa, her sock covered feet stretched out towards me and the meager heat coming from the fireplace. Her green eyes rose to mine, and I could see her taking in the fading bruises around my eyebrow. "I'm so sorry, Walt…"

"Stop apologizing," I ordered softly. "You didn't ask for this. You didn't cause it. It's not your fault."

Her head bowed, then shook back and forth slightly in denial of my words. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap.

"It's all my fault," she choked out, then sniffled. "If I'd never gotten involved with Ed in the first place, if I had just kept my mouth shut in Philadelphia…"

"You did what you had to do, Vic," I told her. "You did the right thing. No matter what happened afterwards, you didn't cause it. You did your job."

"He killed my husband, Walt," she moaned, then wiped furiously at her eyes. "He killed Sean."

I moved to sit beside her and put an awkward hand on her shoulder. She didn't shrug it off, though she turned her face away from me.

"You're only human, Vic. You couldn't have known Bobby Donolato would kill himself. You couldn't have known Gorski would go this far in search of vengeance."

She sniffed again, and I thought about Gorski's manifesto, where he wondered what it took to make Vic cry. I wondered myself if she'd ever allowed herself to cry for her husband's death. Moving my hand in slow circles on her back, I tried to offer what comfort I could.

"It's okay, Vic. You're one of the strongest people I've ever met. But you don't have to be strong every minute of the day."

"I made Sean leave," she blurted out, wiping her face again.

My hand stilled. "Run that by me again?"

"After Gorski left the hospital that day, when he left me that note. I knew he'd come after me, sooner or later. I wanted Sean to get out of the way. I wanted him to be safe. So I picked a fight with him and told him we were through."

A terrible foreboding ran through me. "You told Sean you wanted a divorce - to get him to leave town."

She nodded again, sniffling, her tears coming faster. "I thought he'd be safer if we separated. But he sure didn't take any time getting the paperwork filed. And then I found out he'd been cheating on me, for months. And I couldn't decide if I was mad, or glad, or just relieved about the divorce, and now he's dead, and it's my fault. It's all my fault…"

At that, she broke down completely. I may be slow, but not entirely stupid. I gathered her up, pulling her into my arms, and let her sob her heart out. This had to have been eating at her for weeks – she'd deliberately torn what was left of her marriage apart to keep Sean out of harm's way, only to have those actions place him in danger.

As I held her, feeling the dampness on my shirt grow as her body shook with her silent, desolate misery, I could not help but consider the dichotomy of this woman. She could sew and cook, and shoot as well as any man I knew. She could be a prickly, hot-tempered, foul-mouthed hard ass, but it was mostly to protect a heart that had not been well treated by the men in her life. She wore her passion and determination like war paint for all the world to see. This part of her, however, I doubt she ever let anyone witness, even her husband. I felt oddly privileged to be allowed such a liberty, even as my heart ached for her pain.

Eventually the storm calmed but I kept stroking her hair, holding her like I'd once held Cady after a boy broke her heart. Her breathing slowly evened out, and finally, with a soft sigh, she was asleep. She didn't move when I slid down towards the arm of the sofa a bit, finding a more comfortable spot to watch the fire and just hold the woman in my arms.

Thinking of Cady as a little girl reminded me of my life before; before Martha's death, when I wasn't the sheriff and didn't have the weight of the county on my shoulders. Martha and I would sit on the sofa and watch the fire in the evenings after Cady had gone to bed. I won't deny we did other things in front of the fireplace, but once Cady came along that sort of thing stayed in the bedroom. Even when she was old enough to be gone overnight, the floor had gotten to be too damned hard.

Vic stirred in her sleep, and it abruptly occurred to me that this was NOT my daughter and most decidedly not a little girl. I swallowed and reminded myself that she was my deputy. My employee.

It didn't help.

Her arm stole around my waist as she turned her face into my chest for a moment, searching for a more comfortable – and drier – spot to rest against. As she did, her body nestled a bit closer to mine and the rest of my body took notice.

It had been nearly six months since that one night with Lizzie, and now I had my arms wrapped around a woman whom I admired and respected more than just about any woman I'd ever met. She was warm and supple beneath my hands, and for just a few moments I let myself imagine making love to Victoria Moretti here on this sofa, waking her and rolling her under me as I peeled off that waffle weave shirt and explored her lean, trim form. Would she be as brassy and bossy as usual, or was there a softer, hidden side she'd only show her lover? I suddenly wanted to find out, something fierce.

Instead, I lay there, patiently, quietly, and just let her sleep. The last thing she needed was an old man pawing at her, giving her one more reason to leave Wyoming – and me – far behind.

After a while my body calmed down, and slowly – reluctantly even – I managed to slip out from under her. A blanket lay draped over the back of the sofa and I covered her with it, this time tucking it around her with all the tender care I wished I could show her. The bare bed on the far wall was colder, and darned lonely in contrast, but I lay down anyway, pulled my hat over my eyes, and tried not to dream about Vic Moretti.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: Stalking Horse – a Longmire Fanfic**

**Author: Ramos**

**Rating: PG-13**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Walt Longmire, though I'd like to try a little 'whispering…'**

~Chapter 10~

I must have slept, but seemed only a few seconds later that my hat was lifted off my face and Deputy Moretti was telling me to wake up. The softer, mourning woman from the night before was gone; so much so that I wondered if I'd dreamt the whole thing. In her place was a woman with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her uniform tucked in neatly and her duty jacket in hand. Her gun was already clipped to her belt.

"Branch called. We got a hit on Gorski."

Blinking sleep from my eyes, I had a flash of déjà vu. A night in Arizona, when I had considered things that were just the figments of an old man's mind. That sudden knock on our adjoining door that had me regarding it like Pandora's box, only to find a call to arms behind it.

"Where?" I asked as my brain started working.

"Lahaye up in Montana has been keeping a close eye on Gorski's credit cards. Ed checked into a motel around midnight last night, over near Cumberland County."

I sat up and grabbed my hat, put it on, then went to the bathroom to take care of some business. Washing my hands, I peered in the mirror and was once again greeted by a fellow who looked like he'd had a hard night. Only the darker, salt marked spot on my blue denim shirt indicated that last night hadn't been a dream.

When I came back out, Vic handed me a granola bar, the type she kept in her desk for emergency rations.

"What - no omelet? No coffee?" I asked.

"Suck it up, Walt," she told me, gnawing on her own.

The woman from the night before was definitely gone, and in her place was Vic the Valkyrie, 100% cop, accept no substitutes. I thought about insisting she stay here, and take that time off we'd discussed, but Vic in this mood was an unstoppable force and I wasn't foolish enough to say it out loud. At the moment, her letting me drive the truck was a victory.

We got to the motel before six a.m., but the room was empty.

"God dammit!" Vic shouted as we finished clearing the place. "Where is that son of a bitch?!"

"Calm down," I ordered. "We're not even sure he stayed here. He might have deliberately used that credit card."

"As one of those whatsits? Horse stalkers?"

"Bait," I answered shortly. "When he couldn't find us last night, he used the credit card charge to flush us out."

We cleared the motel, much to the disgruntlement of the manager and the few people she had staying there. Parked out back, we found a late model blue Crown Vic with a damaged fender. It had no license plate on it, but we followed procedure and called the VIN number in for Branch to compare it to the one Gorski bought months ago. Branch grumbled at having to stay at the station – technically he was still on limited duty – but he confirmed it for us and told us to be careful.

Vic and I wasted two hours driving up every driveway within a few miles walking distance, but no one was missing a car or had seen anyone on foot. My stomach was growling and so was Vic.

"I can't believe how sloppy Ed's getting," she muttered. "Leaving his car behind? He was always so careful about leaving evidence in Philadelphia. He skated that line, right up to the edge, but never went over it."

"Maybe he's getting tired of games," I offered. "Getting tired of running around." I was getting pretty concerned by now. Sloppy meant careless, and if he didn't care if he got caught, that meant he didn't care about consequences. He was approaching endgame on this little cat-and-mouse routine, which seldom ended well for the mouse. I glanced over at Vic – she was hardly a mouse, and Ed Gorski knew it. I could only hope he'd underestimate her to the end.

We were halfway to the station when Vic's phone rang.

"It's Branch," she informed me, then answered. "You're shitting me," she said almost immediately.

"What?" I demanded.

"The manager at that crappy little motel just called. Her car's been stolen. It was there when we were, so he must have been hiding somewhere, waiting for us to leave."

I took the phone from her. "Branch, get the info on that car and get an APB out to the Highway Patrol. Also, see if they can spare a couple of men to help us search."

"Sure, Walt. Anything else?"

"Is everything quiet there?" I asked.

"Yep. Same as usual."

"Okay. Let me know if anything happens."

"Huh," he said, intrigued, as if something caught his attention.

"What?"

Rustling noises came over the phone, which I recognized as the window blinds rattling. "The manager said she drove a white hatchback Celica. It just so happens there's a white hatchback of some sort parked over at the hardware store."

"You don't say."

"You know how old man Austin gets when someone hogs one of his parking spaces. Surprised he hasn't come over here to bitch about it. I'm gonna walk over there and see if the plates match."

It took everything I had to keep my voice casual. "Why don't you get Ferg to do that?" I suggested. "Just - check it out, then call me back."

If it turned out Gorski was staking out the station, he'd be watching for Vic, maybe for me. With luck, he wouldn't be watching for Branch or Ferg. Last night's attack could have been just another move in his persecution of Vic, or he could have reached the tipping point of his obsession. And if he had lost all sense of reason, then the mere sight of his quarry could send him over the edge entirely. Either way, it would make things easier if I could figure out how to apprehend Gorski without putting Vic in his sights.

"I'm starving, how about you?" I asked my passenger. That earned me a raised eyebrow, but Vic nodded.

"We're gonna stop for some breakfast," I told Branch. "Let me know if you hear anything from the H.P.D."

"Sure thing," Branch agreed and hung up. I handed the phone back to Vic and headed into town.

I made sure to park the truck in the far side of the Busy Bee's lot. It was close enough to the station that I could walk over, rather than driving the distinctive county vehicle down the main square and advertising our presence. Thinking on it, I could probably send Vic on some sort of errand, preferably at the opposite end of town, and keep her out of Gorski's sights.

Vic asked for a menu as she sat down, but Dorothy didn't bother to offer me one. The menu hasn't changed in years, and any specials are on the chalkboard over the register. After giving her order, Vic went off to wash her hands and I had a moment to reconsider what I was doing.

One thing Vic has made perfectly clear is her desire to be treated like any other deputy in the department. Trying to keep her out of this could be considered being over-protective, and I was likely to get my head handed to me when she found out. And, with both Branch and the Ferg at less than a hundred percent, it wasn't sensible to expect them to take on a well-trained and unstable former cop, even if the Ferg had managed to put some hurt on him last night.

Heaving a sigh, I decided I should tell Vic about the hatchback as soon as she got back. Lost in thought, I sipped at my water glass until an angry buzzing noise caught my attention, coming from underneath the laminated menu Vic had left on the countertop. When I flicked it to one side, Vic's phone lay there, skittering sideways as it vibrated repeatedly.

"Yeah," I answered, feeling dread crawl down my spine.

"Walt? Why didn't you call me back? Where the hell is Vic?" Branch sounded frantic, and I realized that Vic had been gone for several minutes longer than it should have taken to wash her hands.

"She was just here," I told him. "What did you find out?"

"I called Ferg and had him drive around the square to get the plates on that hatchback. They came back registered to that Cassie Biehner – the motel manager."

"Gorski's here, then," I said. "Did Ferg see him?"

"No – The car was empty. The bastard's around here somewhere on foot."

I was on my own feet now, striding towards the women's restroom. One woman at the sink jumped as I slammed open the door, but the two stalls were empty.

"Dammit! Vic's gone! How did she know?"

"I texted her five minutes ago," Branch told me, exasperated. He had every right – I forget half the world types rather than calls each other.

"She didn't call you back?"

"No - wait, hang on." The phone beeped in my ear before Branch's voice came back. "Walt, there's a text on my phone – it says 'Stalking Horse – use the S.' What the hell does that mean?"

I figured it out, told Branch what to do.

Dorothy called out after me, standing there with two plates of food, but I ignored her and ran out the door. Cutting across the alley towards the main square, I was just in time to see Vic rounding the far corner, her duty jacket zipped up tight and her determined stride making her gun bounce against her hip.

Dodging through traffic and making several cars swerve, I ran up the line of parking spaces around the square and cut through to the park-like area common to a lot of small towns throughout the northern half of the country. It had a set of sidewalks around the edges, and another set that crossed in the middle and marked off different quadrants. The nearest was the playground, surrounded by bushes, while the far side was reserved for a patriotic set of flagpoles, a cement-filled cannon, and a verdigris-crusted statue of some war hero from a war no one remembered. I caught sight of bright blonde ponytail as it turned the corner near the statue and abruptly stop.

I know this park – I've lived here all my life. I skirted the far side of the playground, keeping the thick bushes between myself and the two near the statue. I couldn't see Gorski from this angle, but I could hear both him and Vic.

"Hey, Vic," he greeted her casually.

Her shoulders tilted, and her head slid to one side in the supremely arrogant way of hers when she's being deliberately insolent. "Hey, Ed. You done stalking me yet? Finally get the balls to come after me in broad daylight?"

She crossed her arms, placing her hands far away from her pistol as if emphasizing her lack of fear. I knew the moment she saw me come around the bushes and skulk up to the base of the statue, which was just barely tall enough to hide my not inconsiderable bulk, even doubled over as I was.

"I'm not nearly done causing you pain, Vic. You haven't suffered like you should."

"Killing my husband wasn't enough?"

"That was an accident," he told her. Strangely, I believed him. "He was only supposed to get roughed up a bit. Christ, hadn't he ever heard of buckle up? But it did sorta mess up my plans. I never even got around to that that pretty boy up there in the office! Tell me, Vic - do they take turns, or do you screw all three of them at once?"

She gave him a thin smile. "Who I sleep with is none of your business. But for the record? You trying to use them to punish me if pretty damn pathetic."

"You deserve it," he growled.

"To tell you the truth, Ed, I haven't suffered much at all," she said blithely. "Sure, I had to leave Philly, but out here I'm up to my eyeballs in hot cowboys and all of them dumber than dirt. Just like Bobby Donolato was."

"You don't say his name!"

"You got lucky with Sean," she told him. "Hell, you even did me a favor, though your timing sucked. Of course, you always did have bad timing – how long were you married? And you still have no idea what you're doing in bed?"

"Low blow, Vic…"

"You really think I broke it off with you because you were married?" She snorted. "You just weren't up to the job."

I heard a metallic sound – safety off, I reckoned. Easing a few inches sideways put me at a point to see Gorski's hand. He was standing some ten feet away from Vic, holding a 9 mm in her direction. The awkward grip registered and I realized he was holding it left-handed.

"There's a lot of jobs you aren't up to, Ed. You're a lousy lay, and a lousy cop. I know you were a lousy husband – I hear your wife left you, took the kids? That's just _soo_ sad," she mocked.

I gave her a warning look – she really needed to tone it down. Gorski was so close to losing his temper his hand was shaking with rage. To no surprise, she ignored me and turned it up instead.

"You know what I think, Ed? I think you're a coward. I think you're out of time. You gotta make a move, but you just can't bring yourself to pull that trigger."

His right hand came up to steady his left, and I could see wrist was wrapped in a cheap splint he probably got from a drug store. It was grotesquely swollen, his fingers like dark sausages. The sounds of him and the Ferg falling down those stairs played through my memory, and again I heard that snap. Ferg thought he might have hurt Gorski a bit, but it appeared as though one or both of them had landed on that wrist as they went down.

That may have been why that knife had been driven so deeply into Ferg's shoulder, but the bones in Gorski's wrist or lower arm were definitely broken. If Ed didn't get that looked at soon, he ran the risk of compartment syndrome. The swelling was cutting off the blood supply, and without treatment he could very well loose that hand entirely. Yet another incentive forcing him to either shorten his timeline and act now, or try to disappear and regroup.

"You're a coward, Ed," Vic continued hammering away. "Just like Bobby was a coward – he killed himself rather than face the consequences of his actions. Were you dirty too? IA never told me."

"Shut up, you bitch!" Having been pushed beyond his breaking point, Gorski fired. There was a scream of pain, but it wasn't from Vic – it was from Gorski. Years of training had prompted him to assume the two-handed Weaver stance as he shot, but either moving the broken wrist or the recoil had jarred it enough to make him cry out.

When I stood and took a step towards Vic, Ed was hunched over in pain, holding his wounded arm close to his body.

"You missed!? You stupid bastard - how the hell did you ever qualify for the department?"

"That's a good question, Vic," I commented. "You coulda made that shot, easy. I made you show me when I hired you. Left handed and right handed. You see, Ed - out here in Wyoming, we expect folks to grow up being comfortable with firearms. Most boys grow up hunting with their dads. Like Branch up there."

I pointed with my own left hand, over my shoulder and back towards the station. The office window was cracked open a good eighteen inches, and the majority of my Springfield .45-70 protruded from the window. The scope was just visible in the sunlight, with Branch's wide shoulder behind it, his tawny sleeve pale against the dark window sill.

"Now, I know you feel hard done by. Bobby was your brother in arms, and you don't want to accept that maybe he did something he was ashamed of, and took the only way out he knew how. But you harassing Vic, killing her husband – it's not gonna clear Bobby's name.

"So, here's what's gonna happen, Ed. You're gonna put that gun down. And you're gonna let me arrest you, real easy like."

"I'll kill her," he promised, bringing his shaky left hand up again, his fingers tight around the grip of his gun. The pain was obviously intense; his face had gone pale, and a clammy sweat was beading up over his forehead.

"You try to pull that trigger again and Branch will blow your head off," I promised him. "He may be a pretty boy but he can shoot the eye off a bullfrog. And even if he misses, which I doubt he would, I guarantee I won't." I turned my own right hand so he could see the .45 I held ready.

Ed stared at me, and at Vic. A storm of emotions crossed his face; anger, despair, even remorse, and then, finally, resignation. He dropped his grip, allowing the gun to swing up and dangle from his outstretched index finger.

"I never meant to kill Sean," he told Vic, sounding nearly apologetic.

"Gun," I barked at her, and she moved forward to take the gun from his hand. Once she had, I holstered my own weapon. "Cuffs," I demanded.

"That bastard was cheating on you, Vic," he told her, his voice perilously close to a whine.

Vic handed me her cuffs and I fastened one around his left wrist. The right was so swollen I doubted the other cuff would even go around it. Instead I latched it around his belt loops on his right side.

"He was never enough of a man for you, you know that, right?"

"He was the man I needed, after you and I were over," Vic told him shortly. "Whatever you and Bobbie were into, you let it drag you down. You didn't have to let it destroy you."

Taking his left bicep in a tight grip, I steered him down the sidewalk. He kept trying to talk to Vic, but I marched him along at a swift clip. Now that it was over, my anxiety was rapidly turning into a simmering anger, much as it had when I first heard about Ed Gorski. He'd made Vic miserable for weeks, and now he was nothing but pitiful. As far as I was concerned, the sooner I saw the back of him, the better.

Branch met us at the stairs and helped lead Gorski to a cell, taking over the job of patting Ed down and removing his pocket contents. I told him to remember to read him his Miranda rights and then asked Ruby to call Doc Weston to come over and take a look at that hand.

"Vic," I barked, interrupting whatever she was saying to Ruby. "My office. Now."

The rifle Branch had been using to cover us was still on his desk. I swept up and stalked into my office, slapping my hat on the coat rack so hard I nearly knocked it over. Too furious to speak, I carried the rifle to my desk, slamming the chair back to give myself room to work. Habit guided my hands as I levered all the shells out, the brass cartridges scattering across my desk and rolling on to the floor

Vic came in and shut the door behind her, crossing her arms. She'd taken off her duty coat, pushing the black sleeves of her thermal up over her elbows. Her jaw was set in a mulish expression as she watched me unload the rifle and lock it back in the case.

"You want to yell at me now and get it over?" she asked finally.

"I'd like to turn you over my knee!" I told her, glaring.

"Kinky," she muttered, which was pretty much the exact wrong thing to say to me at the moment.

"What the HELL were you thinking?" I exploded. "There's a difference between a stalking horse and bait - I thought you were smarter than that!"

"I was thinking I wanted this over with!"

She flinched when I strode up to her, but held her ground, refusing to back up even an inch.

"From day one you have acted like you're all alone in this case, Vic Moretti. You didn't tell me why you left Philadelphia – you didn't tell me when Gorski showed up and started threatening you. And today, you deliberately – DELIBERATELY – went out there on your own, without backup – he could have shot you dead and been halfway out of the county before we found your body!"

"It had to end, Walt! I wanted Ed Gorski out of my life, one way or the other. I was not going to Branch's funeral, or Ferg's. Or yours!"

"That's not up to you! I am the sheriff here, and you damned well do what I tell you!"

She bit back several comments, which was the wisest thing she'd done so far today. "So you're gonna fire me or what?"

She put her hands on her hips at that, and the movement made the unbuttoned neck of her uniform gape a bit, exposing her delicate collarbones. She appeared as fragile and fierce as a trapped hawk at that moment, just as defiant, just as dangerous. Her skin was untanned there, fine and pale next to the black waffle weave undershirt.

Then my eyes detected the slightly different texture of fabric. Just a hair off in color, the close-weave black cordura fabric was nearly invisible against her undershirt. I plucked at her uniformed shoulder near the collar, pulling the neckline just a little wider, and revealed the upper shoulder of her body armor.

"You're wearing a vest?"

"Well, duh!" she shot back, as though it was the stupidest question she'd ever heard.

She was wearing her body armor. She had said Ed was a lousy shot, meaning he'd have to aim center mass if he had a hope of hitting her. Ferg had said he thought Ed's right arm was injured, which would make him use his even more unreliable left hand, giving him even less chance of aiming properly… and all while she was wearing the vest that had saved countless lives of law enforcement officers all over the country.

I don't remember making the conscious decision; I just pulled her closer and she made a 'mmpf' of surprise as I kissed her. Long moments went by and all I knew was the taste of her mouth and the curve of her back, stiff with reinforced, bulletproof fabric and lumpy with her heavy belt and accompanying cuff case and holster. It was still one of the sexiest things I've had under my hand for longer than I could remember.

Some undetermined time later there was tapping noise on the door and I pulled back, swallowing hard as reality returned with the sound of Ruby's eternally patient voice.

"Walt, if you're through raking Vic over the coals, the Billings HPD is on the phone wanting to talk to you."

"Yeah, okay," I managed, then glanced down. Vic's eyes were wide and staring straight at my adam's apple, but her hands were still looped around my shoulders, her fingers tightly clenched into the faded denim on my back.

"I'd better..." I started, reluctantly loosening my hold on her.

"Yeah, me too," Vic muttered, her hands sliding down my sides and setting off reactions I hadn't felt since I was a young buck. She fumbled for the doorknob and was gone a moment later. Smoothing my hair down, I wondered for a moment if insanity was contagious, then answered the call.

By the time I got off the phone, Branch had taken Gorski over to the hospital on the advice of the doctor – his right hand had gone completely numb, and needed immediate surgery if he wanted to keep it.

The Wyoming State Police finally showed up, just in time to be sent off again. Ferg came in long enough to ask for some time off, and Branch teased him about Myra, which made Ferg embarrassed for the three seconds it took him to remember that he now had a girlfriend, while Branch did not. Branch did not appreciate that, and sulked for a good hour.

What with one thing or another, I never quite got a minute alone with Vic. Not that I tried all that hard; Ed Gorski didn't fight the extradition to Montana and Lahaye was perfectly happy to take him off our hands. The State of Wyoming would wait its turn to prosecute Ed on assaulting a deputy, arson, and whatever else the prosecutor could think of.

More than a week went by before things settled back to normal. Branch was finally cleared for full duty, and the Ferg's new girlfriend took out his stitches after one of their dates, which was more than anyone really wanted to know. The Bullet got new windows, and Ferg did a great job patching the bullet holes. The paint almost matches exactly.

I came in late one afternoon, after answering a call for an accident on the far side of town. Hanging my hat on the rack, I noticed that Ruby had already left for the day and Branch was getting the daily run down from Vic. It was his turn on the evening shift rotation, and he already had his dinner on his desk – yet another take out burger. Vic's desk had the big plastic bag with the quilt in it, her little rolling suitcase parked right alongside. She was taking clothes out of the desk drawer and packing them into a duffle bag.

I felt a knot tighten in my gut. With Ed Gorski in jail, she was free. She'd only come to Wyoming to escape his harassment, and to be with her husband. With both gone, she could probably go back to Philadelphia and make detective in a year or less.

My ears finally caught up to the conversation, and it took a moment for Branch's comments to make sense.

"There's an estate auction over in Odin tomorrow, if you need any more furniture. Your new landlord might be willing to point out some decent pieces."

"Yeah, I don't think I need anything, to be honest. I left the good stuff in the old house – you know, for staging? The bank is getting bitchy about me getting it out of their property. And Mayfair's apartment still has some furniture left in it. It's all older than shit, but it'll do until I find a house worth buying that I can afford. I just wish I had a washer and dryer – I hate that laundromat."

"Laundry shouldn't take you too long; you don't own enough clothes."

She huffed at him. "Did I mention I hate buying clothes?"

"Do you hate buying clothes more than you hate doing laundry?"

"Shut up," she growled, stuffing another shirt into the duffle. "Make yourself useful and drag that down to my truck, will you?"

"Can't – got to go to work," Branch told her with a grin, pleased to have gotten under her skin. He picked up his hat and put it on, then grabbed his thermos and the take-out bag. "Mayfair's got to love having a live-in security guard."

"Not enough to give me a break on the rent," she shot back. "The good news is, it's really close to work. The bad news is…"

"It's really close to work," Branch finished for her. The brim of his hat tipped towards me as he walked out; on Friday nights I usually had whoever was on the night shift running radar down in the southern end of the county.

Mayfair's Antiques took up nearly half one side of the square, but I had forgotten they actually owned the entire stretch of buildings on that side. Several of the upper rooms had been turned into apartments some time ago, and they were rented only to people who met George and Elise Mayfair's exacting standards.

She was staying.

"Hey, don't forget," Vic called out to Branch just as he was headed out the door. "Next Monday, after work – housewarming party. I'm making lasagna. You can bring a bottle of wine."

Branch gave her a dubious look. "Okay, but if I end up with food poisoning I'm gonna void your deposit all over the carpet." He grinned as she glared at him, then went out the door.

With Branch's departure, the room was silent. "What can I bring?" I asked finally. "Assuming I'm invited."

She gave me a long look, but considering we hadn't actually had a single conversation since the day we arrested Gorski, I pretty much deserved that. "If you want tiramisu, I'm gonna need some mascarpone cheese. Funny, the Kum-N-Go doesn't seem to carry that."

I nodded. "'Spose I could make a run up to Sheridan," I told her. "Anything else?"

"Bring Cady, if she's free that night. Henry, too. Maybe even give Ferg the night off?"

"I think it'll be my turn to work nights by then. Need a hand?" I offered, nodding towards the bulging laundry bag. "Maybe you can get yourself a washer and dryer, now."

"Sure," she said with a shrug. "Right after I pay my deposit, my first and last month's rent, the rental fees on my storage locker…"

"Well, when you're done with your laundry, you want to get a burger over at the Red Pony?" The words were already out of my mouth before I realized it sounded like I was asking her out. I swallowed hard. Did I want her to think it was a date? I couldn't honestly say what I wanted at that moment.

"What the hell," she replied before I could spin my wheels any harder. "Sure. Sounds good."

"Okay then."

Her words echoed in my mind. What the hell. Maybe it was a date, maybe it wasn't. All I knew is I wanted to spend some time with her, watch her relax and have a beer and for a little while, not be a sheriff and a deputy, but two friends sharing a meal. Whatever that meant, it did sound good.

Ever the gentleman, I grabbed her bag of laundry while she took the fancy quilt under one arm and hefted her suitcase with the other. I turned out the lights, and we made our way down to the street, where we locked the door and walked out into the cool of the evening.

~FIN~

(Author's note: Okay, my original plan had Gorski dying in a bloody hail of bullets. But the episode on July 14th earned him a pass. Dammit – why do the writers on Longmire have to be so good? However, the confrontation here was planned from the very beginning, so I apologize if it looks too much like the one in 'Population 25.')


End file.
